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Wouldn't you know it. Just as we start to get things on track here @ BoA, what happens ? I get sick as a dog. I'm am sooo sick right now. I feel like hot garbage. Hopefully I'll come out of this soon.
Despite my overall state of ailment, we will persevere this week with the binnall report, your weekly perusal of C2C AM and other related tid bits of esoterica. We're going to look back at the best Seth Shostak interview that I've ever heard, along with a few other gems from last week. We'll look ahead to Stan Lee and Ian meeting up and other possible highlights for the upcoming week. In lieu of "binnall report mailbag", we have an exciting announcement about my first ever interview, to air on Sunday, under the heading "binnall speaks !" We preview this week's BoA : Audio featuring John Greenewald talking about young people and Ufology. We look back into C2C's past including a double dose of wacky "channelers" and more Y2K hysteria. And, of course, Hot Newz, featuring The Coastronauts.
So please put one of those germ masks on and step into my sealed bubble as we begin the binnall report ...
The Week That Was
I must have upset The Noor by skipping out on the Friday night episode on my birthday, because for the second week in a row, he put together another jam packed Friday. Sadly, I also skipped this one.
Irregardless, Noory had "Father of Modern Day Ufology" Stanton Friedman on for the first two hours of the show, to discuss the O'Haire UFO story. In this week's K-Files, BoA's Khyron did a bang up job comparing and contrasting the Friedman appearance with Saturday's Seth Shostak appearance, including this observation about the Friday night Friedman, "So much of Noory’s interview with Friedman seemed like fluff. It seemed like I was just listening to a couple of old friends shoot the breeze about UFO’s. That’s not necessarily bad in small doses". So it sounds like Stanton's appearance was good but not great.
Meanwhile, James McCanney popped in to discuss the Florida tornados for the first half hour and Jerome Corsi made his 3rd appearance of '07, this time to talk about illegal aliens and border cops. While I'm not exactly thrilled with these two being a part of the mix, I'm all for letting "Operation Floating Noory" envelop Friday nights and allow for random C2C stalwarts to show up and wax poet. (If Hoags stops by, though, just turn out the lights and wait till he stops knocking, please).
For the second straight Saturday, Ian Punnett dissed me ... hardcore. I can't get into the sordid details right now, but suffice it to say, I thought Ian and I had an agreement and I'm beginning to wonder if I've fallen for some faux Ian wannabe that's been communicating with me. This story is developing and more may come of it next week, but for now I'll let it sit shrouded in mystery.
Be that as it may, Ian's elaborate ruse to have me listen to more "Ian" paid off, as I caught quite a bit of his interview with Tom McShane, FBI art heist investigator. And, once again, I found this to be an excellent episode. Lots of fascinating discussion on the evolution of art heist investigation by the FBI, what it's like to be undercover, and various great anecdotes about McShane's days chasing down art thieves. Ian excels at true crime / alternative history episodes and this one was no exception. Now if he'd only pay off on that damned BoA related surprised.
Saturday night on C2C proper, Art Bell managed to pull off something close to an esoteric miracle ... a compelling Seth Shostak interview. Unlike all those times Art played Devil's Advocate in favor of things I'm not a fan of (spying on people / war on terror), this time Art was on my side and fighting for pro-UFO folks and, in the process, hammering Shostak with a number of thoughtful questions. Unlike the Noory interviews with Seth, which amount to nothing short of coddling, Art kept the pressure on him, trying to find loopholes in Seth's backward-ass logic regarding UFOs. Excellent episode. Best Shostak interview I've ever heard on Coast.
Apparently, I wasn't the only one who was pleasantly surprised by the style, as Lesley's C2C Rewind was particularly complimentary about it, "To give Bell some credit he was far harder on Shostak than Noory ever is. That didn't mean that Shostak changed his answers, but at least he had to squirm at bit more than normal, which made the show more enjoyable." And, as noted above, do check out this week's K-Files, which draws some interesting parallels between the Friedman v. Shostak feud and the Apple v. Mac feud.
Sunday night, I skipped Gordon Michael Scallion's appearance on the show, where he was discussing "Possessions and Visions". Hey, I can't catch every episode, folks. I checked around for some buzz on this one and the word on the street was shockingly good.
usofe.com's SaucyRossy said, "Personally I enjoyed this episode....I know a lot of people don't like GMS but I enjoyed the Father Malachi Martin stuff" and Lesley said, "Surprisingly, this wasn't a bad episode. Mostly GMS stayed away from making predictions and instead talked about possession and new age healing techniques he had discovered. Also, to give him some credit he did something I have rarely if ever have heard from another c2c psychic or remote viewer, when asked about his predictions that were wrong he admitted they were wrong."
So, much like GMS, himself, I'll admit that I was wrong. It sounds like it was a much better episode than I'd previewed last week. 1000 apologies, Mr.Scallion. I'll keep this in mind next time you are on the schedule.
Monday night, Noory knew he had to do something, following three straight non-Noory hosted episodes that were each, in their own way, excellent. So, when he saw gold in the form of Lon Milo DuQuette, second half hour guest, he invoked Operation Floating Noory and kept DuQuette for an additional hour, saving us all from the originally scheduled three hours of heart disease discussion with Christian Wilde.
Lon Milo DuQuette was excellent, discussing the life and times of Alistair Crowley and a bunch of stuff on Freemasons and Knights Templar. While he did come off as a bit of an AC and Freemasons apologist, some of his points were interesting and, overall, the rich esoteric nature of the discussion was fascinating. After DuQuette left, so did I, only sticking around to catch the first half hour of Christian Wilde. What I heard was decent, albeit a tad too mainstream for my tastes.
Tuesday saw Nostradamus's number one fan, John Hogue, as the full show guest. Hoguey made some predictions, based on Nostradamus and astrology (which is kind of like a dog poo and rotten egg pie), including this make or break gem, "Hillary Clinton will win the presidency, with Barak Obama as her likely running mate" and also that Iraq would be split into 3 countries.
I did enjoy his interpretations of the infamous Mabus and whether or not Saddam was Mabus. Also, the highlight, for me, had to be the first caller during the final hour. Some nutball named "Steve", who rambled on endlessly (and breathlessly) about how C2C doesn't give skeptics the time of day and poor Noory (and Hogue for that matter) were befuddled as to what that meant. Steve sounded like someone smashed his bong, he was so mad. Meanwhile, I laughed. Decent episode.
Wednesday was the proverbial icing on the top of an already strong week as Glenn Kimball was the surprise guest for Wildcard Wednesday. Noory almost sounded like he was down with WW, as he did the C2C "flip flop and fly", bringing Kimball on for the first three hours and then having Open Lines. Perhaps he was trying to avoid another Steve fiasco.
I must have missed Kimball in his previous appearances, as he shocked the hell out of me. Hardcore information mixed with charisma by the boatload and a conviction about his beliefs that really helped the overall presentation. He was so hardcore that he eclipsed poor Noory, who seemed to be trying his best to keep up with him. I really dug his cadence, as well, as he had a really neat way of talking that made everything he said sound ten times more important than it probably turned out to be. Great episode.
Big ups to Lesley, who pointed out that I missed Richard C. Hoagland's first hour pop-in on Wednesday to discuss the NASA crazy lady astronaut story. As usual Hoagie sees a conspiracy, but what that conspiracy is ... he doesn't know yet. He did seem perturbed by all this diaper discussion in the mainstream news, which gave me a good chuckle.
It was on Thursday that I realized that I was beginning to get quite sick, so I went to bed early, opting out of Lawrence Joseph's appearance to talk about doom, gloom, and 2012. No word on the buzz on this one, but I suspect it was hum drum and more of the same with these types of episodes.
Very good week, through and through, with many strong episodes, notably the art heist "Ian", the Bell interview of Shostak, Lon Milo DuQuette's two hour Monday appearance, and Glenn Kimball's great Wednesday appearance. One of the better series of episodes on C2C in quite some time.
The Week That Is
Once again, the jihad against the binnall report rears it's ugly head @ C2C.com, as the powers that be waiting until the last possible second to post the guest list. Much to their chagrin, my illness has me going at three or four times slower than usual, and thus I am still writing this week as they post the guests.
The Noor skipped town, leaving Ian Punnett behind to hold court for Friday into Saturday Open Lines. And we'll get a rare pop culture guest for Ian as the 1st hour pop in will be comic book legend Stan Lee. Ian intimated that he begged to do this interview, so I guess he's a big funny book fan. Up, up, and away true believers ! Should be a fun episode.
Poor IP only gets a small window of time before he's back in the studio on Saturday evening with "Ian". Ian carries on his coverage of the War on Terror as he has Daveed Gartenstein-Ross talking about religious extremism. The episode description sounds a lot like last year's critically acclaimed Walid Shoebat episode of Coast, but this time with Ian as host. I'm expecting a home run episode here.
Saturday night, Art will continue his alternative science kick, this time with Jennifer Ouelette, covering "real-world science, quantum mechanics, teleportation, wormholes" and other such "New Science". She'll also be tying this into sci fi somehow, so that will be a neat side road. Considering the mad props that Art got for his double dose of Seife in January, I expect this one will be strong.
Sunday night, Art Bell and company will try and re-create lightning in a bottle as he re-unites 2006 Coastie Episode of the Year participants Colm Kelleher and George Knapp for a discussion on, what else, Skinwalker Ranch. I'm expecting nothing less than a sure-fire 2007 Coastie frontrunner in this one and it's the one episode you can't afford to miss all week.
Monday, first hour, The Noor meets Casey Kasem. Quite frankly, I'm thrilled. Is there any other celebrity more like The Noor, with his folksy charm straight out of the malt shop days and his syrupy voice made for radio ? How long into the pop-in does Noory wait before he a> does a Kasem impression or b>tries to get Kasem to do one of his trademark bits ? Should be a fun one.
The full show guest will be Paul Guercio and George Hart of Merlin Project fame. I'm not a fan. Some people are and more power to them. I'll be in bed before I hear both of their voices, especially if I'm still sick. Prognosticators ... no thanks.
Tuesday sees Christopher Holmes join the show to talk about consciousness and how the heart may have more to do with the paranormal than the mind. Could be good, could be paint drying, depends on the results of a strange equation, mixing his material, his charisma, and Noory's mood.
Wednesday, David Sereda returns to Coast. This time around he'll be on to talk about the latest UFO flap and singularity. I usually like Sereda when he's talking about UFOs, but tend to lose interest when it comes to the more nebulous stuff like singularity. I'll give it a try though, since it's been a while. Should be good, as Sereda usually equals quality.
Thursday wraps up the formal week with more alternative science, this time in the form of Rupert Sheldrake. For starters, I'm already afraid Rupert will fall victim to the over saturation of alt. science guests this week. This is the perfect night for a Bigfoot guest. Could someone please find Tom Biscardi ?
Seriously, though, Sheldrake is usually on the cutting edge of something in alternative science so I expect this will hit Dean Radin levels (read : very strong) for this type of episode. The over / under of Noory talking about the Princeton Eggs is somewhere in the middle of the first hour.
Overall a strong week, with several potential Coastie contenders and no real dogs in the bunch.
binnall speaks !
Mark you calendars ... Sunday, 2.11.7, on Sweden's Red Ice Radio Podcast ... binnall gives his first interview ever !
I'll be discussing some of the origins behind binnallofamerica.com and some behind the scenes perspective on BoA : Audio, plus my thoughts on Coast to Coast AM, UFOs, the O'Haire sighting, Ufology, various folks in esoterica and tons of other stuff in an hour long interview hosted by Red Ice's Henrik Palmgren.
Honestly, I'd never given an interview before, so I probably ended up rambling more than a few times, but I think, overall, it went well, especially considering my present state of sickliness.
Anyway, check out the link above or stay tuned to BoA for more information on Sunday when the Red Ice episode gets posted.
BoA : Audio, Season Two
This week : John Greenewald (Part 1 of 2)
In our concluding installment, John talks about Ufology and young people, why the field isn't attracting them, advice he has for newcomers, who was instrumental in his early days in Ufology, and a variety of other facets of this pressing issue. We also discuss Project Preserve History and his new podcast series from blackvault.com.
His website is, of course, blackvault.com
Next Week : Jerry E. Smith, "Weather Warfare"
Jerry E. Smith returns to BoA : Audio to discuss his latest book, "Weather Warfare : The Military's Plan to Draft Mother Nature". We'll be discussing all sorts of weather modification stories, ranging from the Rainmakers of the 1890's, the UN's legislation on environmental modification and what's wrong with it, the military's studies of how to use the weather as a weapon, and some in-depth discussion on HAARP and what it might be used for, as well as, the contrail v. chemtrail controversy and how it all might be related to controlling the weather.
His website is jerryesmith.com
This Week in C2C History
2.7.2006 : "Tuesday saw the C2C return for the infamous Lori Toye, talking about her ascended masters and how they predict earth changes. As I'd heard, Toye was nutty as a fruitcake. I found it troubling that the "ascended masters" couldn't seem to master proper dates for their predictions. I was also amused that they didn't bother to predict the Tsunami of 2004 that killed tons of people and was a huge "earth change". I'm beginning to doubt these ascended masters already. Noory, sadly, was enabling her babbling by giving her a few opportunities to spin her story further into zany territory." (binnall report, 2.10.2006)
2.10.2005 : More nuttiness from lady channelers as JZ Knight joined the show to talk about her good friend, Ramtha. "JZ Knight, shared her story and experiences connected with the channeling of a 35,000 year old warrior from the lost continent of Lemuria called Ramtha. He first made himself known to her "in my kitchen in Tacoma, WA in 1977," she said. " (c2c.com)
2.9.1999 : Duck and cover ! Y2K is on the way !! "Art reads a new poll about the percentage of people planning on withdrawing their money from banks in lieu of the Y2K bug and the resulting problems it may cause." (artbell.com cd rom)
End Notes
There you go. Feel free to use that antiseptic hand wash as you exit this column. I'm off to pour myself back into bed and try and kick this bug once and for all.
Plugs : Tomorrow @ binnallofamerica.com, John Greenewald (Part 2), talking about Ufology and Young People, from a number of different angles. Sunday, Lesley's C2C Rewind @ The Debris Field and binnall's first ever interview @ Red Ice Radio. Monday, R.Lee's Trickster's Realm. Tuesday, Lesley's Grey Matters. Wednesday, Khyron's The K-Files. Thursday, Hot Newz. And, Friday, we do it all over again, hopefully feeling much better, in the binnall report.
binnallofamerica.com ... esoterica with a slight temperature.
Ah, that's better. Until you hear from me next week, this is binnall ... signing off.
