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Welcome, my friends, to the very first binnall report of 2006. While I was feeling festive up until yesterday, today I'm in no mood to harp on about the New Year and all that jazz. Hell, I'm glad to have you here and I hope '06 can be as cool as '05, but that's not the point this week.
I'm never any good at this sort of thing, but we dedicate this week's binnall report to Art Bell's beloved wife, Ramona Bell, who, as I'm sure you know by now, passed away suddenly on Thursday. I have no doubt in my mind that Ramona was integral to the success of Coast to Coast AM, more so than perhaps any of us will ever know. Her contributions to the esoteric field will not be lost on this author. In many ways, the show lost its matriarch when it lost Ramona. But that pales in comparison to the loss that Art and his family are now suffering. The thoughts and prayers of binnallofamerica.com go out to the Bell family and also the many folks out there who knew Ramona vicarious through a decade plus of C2C fandom. You're feeling this loss too, I know, and my heart aches for you as well.
We'll do our best to continue onward this week with the usual "binnall report" goodness, though the mood will be less "wacky" than usual, I'm sure.
The Week That Was
We ended 2005 with two back-to-back Art Bell hosted episodes. Yes, it was the annual Predictions show. As I said last week, I'm a fan of having two episodes, that way Art doesn't have to rush through last year's predictions while taking the ones for next year. From the ones I heard this year, many of them sounded downright wacky, as opposed to scary, which could be a good sign.
Sunday, the first C2C episode of 2006 featured Noory going apecrap over psychics and prognosticators. Eight in total, the lineup consisted of Joseph Jacobs, Dr. Louis Turi, Merlin Project, Hans King, Sean David Morton, Gerald Celente, Robert Camp, and Aaron Donahue. I was a huge fan of the way Coast segmented the show, allowing each psychic about a half hour to spin his yarns.
Of the folks I caught, here's how it went down. Joe Jacobs was the most grounded, as usual. He was right about the "water" prediction of '05, despite being horribly vague. Dr. Turi was a wacky as ever and it sounds like he's riding the wave of that Coast Katrina prediction all the way to the bank. I'm a fan of Turi, so I don't mind that at all. Merlin Project guy was decent, albeit boring. I skipped Hans King. Sean David Morton was a whiny little wimp, crying about how he didn't get a full show and practically berating Noory as to when he will get a full show. Noory, wisely, blew him off every time he asked. The one dude who totally rocked was Gerald Celente, who seemed less like a prognosticator and more like a bitter old guy. His ripping on everyone was hilarious. Easily Celente was the funniest guest of the night. I missed the last two, but I'm hoping to catch Aaron Donahue later on this weekend.
Monday, The Noor welcomed Edward Malkowski to talk about "earliest Egypt". I couldn't quite figure out what Malkowski's claim to fame was, other than he's read a lot of books. He was boring as hell and didn't bring anything original to the table. I skipped out mid-way through the interview as I was fairly disgusted at that point.
Tuesday saw the first bonafide contender for 2006's Coaster Award in the, now infamous, Sylvia Browne meltdown. This farce has already been detailed at length @ binnallofamerica.com. For those of you just joining us, Sylvia took credit for "knowing" that the trapped miners would be "found" when everyone was thinking they'd been found alive. Less than an hour later, when we all realized they were actually dead, Sylvia claimed she meant "found" as in their bodies would be found. Um, yeah. Her story has more holes in it than high quality Swiss cheese.
Noteworthy was that the story of how Sylvia made a fool of herself on C2C was picked up by Fox News, of all people, giving C2C a healthy dose of mockery. One wonders where the hell the mainstream news is when C2C puts together a great episode. I guess they only want to publicize the foolish crap that happens. Sylvia's reputation on C2C is tarnished beyond repair at this point. It would be best for everyone if she did not return to the show for at least a year, but something tells me she will be on again by the Summer. I expect she'll be explaining this mishap forever, though. A classic episode, for all the wrong reasons.
Wednesday, Noory welcomed first Richard C. Hoagland (his 2nd appearance of '06 already, sheesh) and Keith Morgan, some dude from ABC's Nightline. This may have been the best pure episode of the week, as RCH and Morgan shared war stories about how NASA messed with Hoags. Morgan seemed like someone who's discovered the esoteric and is fascinated by it, like all of us. I loved how he mentioned the Zecharia Sitchen episode from a few weeks back. I'm always a sucker for guests who listen to Coast and reference it on their appearances. I caught most of this episode and it was fairly entertaining throughout.
And, Thursday, Noory had "Numbers Lady" Glynis McCants on the show to talk about Numerology. Of course, the entire episode was marred by the pall cast over it from the sad news of the passing of Ramona Bell. Kudos to Noory for keeping the show going, but I'm afraid I wasn't too interested in hearing from Glynis after we'd heard about Ramona. Glynis was decent, but it was background noise, if anything.
The Week That Is
It looks to be a pretty strong, on paper, upcoming week for C2C. We start out tonight with the first official Open Lines of '06. I'm not a huge fan of Open Lines, but I'll keep it on in the background tonight, in case anything big happens or we have a good pop-in.
Saturday Night Punnett returns this weekend after a two week hiatus. IP will have Peter Lance on to talk about 911. Lance is slowing coming around to the idea that there was some serious schenanigans involved in 911. He's not at the "made it happen" mindset or even the "let it happen" mindset, but looks to be moving towards the latter one. Ian was gushing over Lance on his last appearance and since Punnett doesn't subscribe to a 911 conspiracy, they ought to hit it off just fine. Lance gets on my nerves after about an hour, but I'll see how much of his "know it all" attitude I can endure.
Sunday, C2C runs a classic Art Bell episode featuring David Adair, talking about UFOs. Huge kudos, once again, to Coast for digging out some serious classics, as opposed to half assed replays. This episode originally aired on 11.17.1997.
Monday, The Noor kicks off what should be a very good week with Michael Shermer, skeptic. This guy is so skeptical, I don't think he believes anything. If you've ever seen any paranormal special, you've almost assuredly seen Shermer, who serves as the token skeptic for shows like that. How he jives with Noory and Coast should be fascinating. Kudos for C2C for having the bravery to at least have one skeptic on to counterbalance much of the ilk they usually feature (especially after this week of psychic overload).
Tuesday should be a barn burner with co-author of "Hunt for the Skinwalker" Colm Kelleher. I'm nearly done with this fantastic book and am looking forward to hearing Kelleher on Coast. He'll be detailing his time at the NIDS ranch in what will, I'm sure, be a fascinating episode.
Wednesday, Noory's all about rods. Not fishing rods or lightening rods, but just plain "rods", the infamous esoteric things that Jose Escamilla has become famous for promoting. I'm not terribly familiar with rods, but they had their 15 minutes of esoteric fame back in the day and have, thankfully, faded into near oblivion. Escamilla will, I'm sure, be trying to help facilitate a rod comeback. Expect a healthy dose of blurry pictures and stunned reactions from Noory.
Thursday ... The Great Oil Debate. Jerome Corsi, anti-peak oil, versus Michael Ruppert, pro-peak oil. Both are zealous believers in their side, so I expect a classic knock-down, drag-out affair. Don't be surprised if guest referee Noory gets clobbered with a steel chair or loaded boot at some point in the event.
Top to bottom great looking week from C2C. Lots of big names in the lineup with something for everyone in esoterica.
binnall of america : audio, Season One
Here's the scoop, kids. BoA : Audio is taking a much needed break right now. We're calling it a "mid-season hiatus". We will return with new, fresh episodes on 1.21.2006. The reason is that we essentially got clobbered by the holidays and then, right when things started to settle down, we were drafted for a very big project (which I'll be announcing shortly) that will give BoA : Audio another huge dose of "street cred".
Due to that turn of events, a lot of our operation was put on hold over the last two weeks and we are just now getting things up and running again. We expect to start cutting new interviews next week, but want some time to collect them before rolling them out on you. Starting on 1.21, we'll be having new episodes until sometime in March/April, when we will put an end to Season One and take a few months in preparation for Season Two.
So ... mid-season hiatus ... BoA : Audio returns on 1.21.2006. Details on our first guest of '06 next week.
The 2006 Coasties
In case you missed it last week, The 2005 Coastie winners can be found @ binnallofamerica.com (HERE). Much thanks to all who voted.
This weekend @ BoA, we'll have an updated standing of all of 2006's Coastie Contenders from December of '05 and the first week of the New Year.
binnall report mailbag
Letter #1
I'll be here at Home live On-Line for Friday night's Show. Better not be a Damn Replay!!! Especially an Open Lines REPLAY!!! My 43rd B-Day is Sunday 01/08/06 More than Likely a Replay of C2C, that's OK, It's NFL PLAYOFFS!!! But if they Play a good one I will listen to what I can. ELVIS (THE KING OF ROCK and ROLL) and David Bowie (STARDUST) and I share the same B-Day. And you know how I am. A Strange mix I am!!!
Do I get a Virtual B-Day Cake on your Site???? You have a few Days, I would be thrilled at the effort! Even a Happy B-Day to Smoker Dave will do.
smoker dave
Happy Birthday, Smoker Dave ~! I haven't whipped up the virtual birthday cake yet (I have to go over to my virtual neighbor's house to get a cup of virtual flour.) We'll have the cake for ya @ BoA on Sunday.
Letter #2
Tim,
Are you going to be covering Noory's Predictions show ?
Chris in Pensacola, Florida
I thought I was up until this week when I checked with my cable company to find out the price and it turns out that Noory's special in exclusive to pay-pre-view provider InDemand, which means my PPV provider, TVN, will not be carrying it. I'm working on getting a copy, though, no worries. We should have some sort of coverage @ binnallofamerica.com, I'm sure.
Questions ? Comments ? Send them to tbinnall@hotmail.com
This Week in C2C History
1.6.2003 : One of my all time personal favorite episodes of C2C ever. Bart Sibrel ... Moon Hoax Maniac. This was during Noory's first month as full time host and Sibrel was off the wall insane from the beginning, this appearance having been beaten up by Buzz Aldrin. Sibrel said, "You had one astronaut kicking me, one punching me, all we need is one spitting on me and we'll have a good trilogy." Yes, he was that insane. In this pre-fast blast era, Noory said he'd gotten 90% anti-Moon Hoax theory e-mails throughout the show and was exasperated with wacky Bart by the very end. A hands down classic episode and it occurred 3 years ago today. I'm sure Noory still has nightmares.
1.6.1999 : Journey back to the infamous 1999, where Y2K became the esoteric wunderboy. Some snippets as the hype to Y2K began, "Art reminds us that ABCNEWS.com had a article on y2k cults etc. including CSETI and Steven Greer among those. They have now retracted that inference and Art is glad they heard 'us'. " ... "Open Lines finishes out the first hour with the main topic of dicussion being Y2K. 2nd hour.... Art tells us how he is going to become a millennium guru, since the press will probably paint him as one, and get a black cape with MM printed on it" ... finishing up with "Michael [Theroux] and Art begin the hour discussing the power grid and outages that may occur due to Y2K." (artbell.com cd rom)
1.6.1998 : More bogus promises from NASA and it all happened 8 years ago today on the Art Bell show : "NASA is on its way back to the moon after 25 years. The prospector will look for ice on the moon along with minerals and gases. Art says wouldn't it be cool if we found something really valuable on the moon. " (artbell.com cd rom)
End Notes
Sigh. Thanks for reading, folks, hope you enjoyed the ride.
Plugs : Tomorrow @ BoA, updated Coasties '06 information and Hoags to Hoags AM : 2006 kicks off. Sunday, smoker dave and SNP. Monday, the finale of News Watch. Tuesday, Grey Matters. Wednesday, The K-Files. Thursday, Noory's original plans of pay per view in Hot Newz. Friday, the binnall report, BoA's mothership. binnallofamerica.com ... Experience the Difference.
That does it, kids. Once again, we want to express our condolences to Art, his family, and the C2C family, at large, on this terribly sad day. We share a common bond that is the quest for truth. To lose one of our own, makes the loss all the more difficult.
Be well, my friends.