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Ah, March. In like Alex Jones, out like Jeff Rense. Can you believe February is already gone ? I've said it before and I'll say it again ... time is the enemy of all mankind.
On that pithy note, here's what we'll be doing this week. First, I've got to talk about a fairly strong week on Coast to Coast AM, including another amazing Jim Sparks appearance, a great debut from Joe Montaldo, and the potential swan song for Red Elk. Then, it's a look ahead to next week, with a rare 911 "Ian" and a surefire hit with Nick Pope. Tomorrow's BoA : Audio with Paul Schatzkin will be previewed, an Australian BoA listener's e-mail will be answered, Hoagland's Martian "blueberries" will be remembered, and, of course, Jerome Corsi's new vehicle from C2C Films will be revealed in Hot Newz.
So, as you can see, there's a lot going on. Let's not waste any more time and get right to the clubbering.
The Week That Was
At the conclusion of last week's "binnall report", The Noor had "She's a Lady" cued up for the monthly Linda Moulton Howe appearance, followed by two hours of Open Lines. I skipped LMH, but do know that she was talking about the honeybee story and other organic stuffs, which is a departure from her usually deep esoteric material. Standard Friday into Saturday Open Lines followed.
Saturday on "Ian", IP welcomed Dr. John Abramson to blow the lid off the cholesterol conspiracy. I was so busy with my own crap that I ended up taking a pass on this one, as it looked a tad too light. Thankfully, Lesley caught it, so we'll turn it over to her C2C Rewind for the play-by-play, "Abramson talked about the cholesterol myth. This is something I already knew about, but he added a lot of other interesting things about prescription meds in there. Ian seemed to be totally on board with Abramson. It was about as good as a health related show could be."
And then came Saturday night's C2C proper, with guest Dick Criswell, ostensibly on to talk about UFOs. Just a complete and utter disaster, as Art tried in vain to get something going in this one and ended up pulling the plug after an hour. Criswell was mixed up in some disclosure type stuffs, back in the day, but refused to discuss it with Art, which amused him, since it was disclosure, after all. Art mocked his pre-written questions, and towards the end, Criswell gave out his cell phone number, which Art kind of laughed about and made sure to repeat so everyone got it.
The interview got so bad that Art was finally like, "well, what do you want to talk about ?" and Criswell said, "ghosts", which came completely out of left field. I nearly lost it at that point. A surefire Coaster contender and worth listening to if you have an hour to spare, because this was an esoteric radio train wreck of mammoth proportions. An ultra-rare, and worthy, Bell booting.
Sunday's episode was the total opposite, as Jim Sparks returned to the show to hold Art and the audience in total captivation as he recounted his abduction tale. I'm normally not a big abduction fan, but this was riveting stuff. Kudos to Bell for encouraging the audience to seek out the December C2C Sparks interview, a rare throwback to a previous episode, that you just don't hear too often on Coast. Very good episode, putting Sparks in serious contention for Best UFO episode of '07 (especially when one considers his 4 hour December showing, which is within the Coastie contender calendar as well).
Monday night, TBA turned into a Jesus Tomb quasi-roundtable episode, with Mike Heiser and Darrel Bock on the first half and Glenn Kimball and Will Henry in the second half. For starters, allow me to chastise C2C for, yet again, filling a TBA slot with a theme episode. For shame, Coast, for shame.
Anyway, I skipped the first half, with Heiser and Bock, so I can't comment on that. I did hear the Kimball / Henry second half and it was pretty damn good. It wasn't necessarily good for the discussion on the Jesus Tomb, moreso for Glenn Kimball, who was kinda weird and more than a little ornry. When Noory asked them if they were going to watch the special on the Tomb, Kimball said "no", because he has "issues" with James Cameron. It was really awkward. Then later he told some story about guys with guns harassing him after he appeared on C2C, in a wholly unbelievable story.
I got an e-mail from a friend who knows more about this field than I do and he seemed pretty irate at the guests C2C had on, presumably in the first half, and intimated that they didn't know what they were talking about. I will say that I didn't learn much about the Jesus Tomb story, but I did learn that Glenn Kimball hates James Cameron for reasons he won't say, which is an interesting factoid, in and of itself. Kind of a "meh" episode, aside from the strangeness that was Kimball.
Tuesday, C2C legend Red Elk returned to the program for what he claimed was his final appearance. I'm not quite sure what to make of Red Elk's ostensible "retirement", other than that esoterica is like professional wrestling and no one ever really retires. Remember when John Lear was on C2C in November of 2003 and swore, up and down, that he'd never appear on the program again ? I do. John must not, since he's appeared three times since then. In other words, don't cry for Red Elk just yet, because I have a sinking suspicion this wasn't his final Coast appearance.
Despite all that, this was a good episode. I can see why Red Elk has resonated with the Coast audience for so long, as his material was strong and he had tremendous charisma. I really enjoyed his stuff on lizard people and Mel's Hole, but found his "Seattle breaks off into the ocean" stuff to be a bit too "doom and gloom" passe for me. Noory's folksy nature led to a few cringe-worthy moments, but that's part of the Noor charm, so it can be forgiven. All in all, a strong episode.
Wednesday saw the C2C debut of Joe Montaldo, who was on to talk about abductions and famous UFO cases. Having met Joe a few times at various conferences, I was happy to see him "get the call" and appear on the big show. As expected, he had some pretty interesting material and a large dose of charisma.
My only qualm, really, was that he seemed to play fast and loose with numbers in that first hour, while talking about abductions. For instance, he stated that they had 3000 "real" abduction cases on file and then later said that 1 in 10 of the people that say they are abducted turn out to be real. Therefore, his group would have to have dealt with 30,000 people, which I find totally unbelievable, considering the funding issues in esoterica to begin with. I'd chalk this up more to hyperbole than dishonesty.
Be that as it may, the rest of the interview was great stuff. I really enjoyed his take on the Betty and Barnie Hill case, especially since he goes so far against the grain of mainstream Ufology. Noory didn't seem to know what to say, at one point making like he was going to disagree, then just saying that "something extraordinary happened to them". Geez, Noor, don't go out on a limb or anything. The Shag Harbour case stuff was also very interesting. Montaldo reminded me a lot of Darrel Sims and in this instance, that's a good thing. Strong episode.
The formal week wrapped up with Christopher Moon on Thursday talking about "Frank's Box", which is like a telephone to the dead. I was expecting a dog here and it actually turned out to be pretty good. Not your usual EVP stuff, but a nice twist on the old chestnut. A couple of things had me chuckling, first of all Noory's obsession with making a movie about Frank's Box solving crimes or something. Every few minutes, he'd go on a tangent about how it could be a movie.
The other part that was funny was just the whole topic of "Frank's Box". I'm sorry, but the 8th grader in me couldn't help but chuckle everytime Noory said "Frank's Box" and all the various, lurid and hilarious, permutations it took on. Surprisingly good episode.
In total, a strong week for Coast to Coast. Very good episodes from Jim Sparks, Red Elk, and Joe Montaldo. Surprisingly good stuff from Christopher Moon and John Abramson. Throw in a theme episode on Monday and a trainwreck on Saturday night and you've got one of the more memorable weeks of C2C in quite some time.
The Week That Is
As is custom, we kick it off tonight with George "The Noor" Noory and his band of merry phone lines. Yes, Friday into Saturday Open Lines, where anything can happen and sometimes does. As much as I loathe OL Fridays (hell, I don't even listen), I'd like to see Noory develop some more characters (good ones like JC, not bad ones like Morgus). How about just giving Sulemon a direct line for the final hour of the show, so he can call whenever he feels like chatting or rambling.
Along those lines, I'd also like to see a little better fare as far as Friday night pop-ins are concerned. I'm not talking about that 1st hour, which is usually pretty good, I'm talking about that 2nd hour, which seems to be a revolving door of geopolitics and alt. science types. It's time for The Noor to promote some folks from once or twice a year to semi-regular and develop some new stars (for lack of a better term). Just so long as it isn't Will Henry.
Moving on, Saturday's "Ian" sees IP welcome David Hawkins for a discussion on 911. From what I can recall of Hawkins' appearance on Coast back in September, he sees 911 as a complex insurance fraud scheme, so he's pro-conspiracy, but with his own unique slant. Ian is pretty good at untwisting these stories, so I expect he'll get a lot out of Hawkins. It should also be interesting to see how Ian deals with the 911 conspiracy, as I was under the impression he swam in the mainstream on this one.
Saturday night Art Bell goes to the UFO well for the third week in a row and I, for one, couldn't be happier. The guest is the mysterious and fascinating Nick Pope, of the British UFO Project lore. Bell has been ultra strong the last few weekends, almost as if his love of UFOs has been rekindled, and I expect this episode will be the UFO crescendo that built up throughout the latter half of February. Hands down best of the week, on paper, a proverbial "must hear".
Speaking of "hear", Amelia Kinkade hears ... animals. On paper, "animal psychic lady" sounds like the kind of episode that gets C2C branded with the "turd in the punchbowl" label, but in the right hands, like Art's, it could be quite good. I'll give it a chance and see where he takes it. I'd like to hear what his cats think of being moved back and forth across the globe, so hopefully he asks.
Monday, The Noor presides over another side of C2C stalwart and rogue physicist James McCanney, as he'll be discussing the Internet and something called "encryption codes". This is a big leap from comets, so instead of being bemused by the McCanney appearance, I'm actually quite intrigued. I expect he'll bring the same brand of "doom, gloom, and conspiracy" to this topic as he does to comets. Has potential.
I scream, you scream, we all scream for Noory on Tuesday as the guest will be John Robbins, heir to the Baskin-Robbins ice cream fortune (rumour has it he never wears a bra). Sadly, he won't be on to talk about the shady world back room dealings of the ice cream industry. Instead, he'll be on to bore us to tears about health stuffs. C2C may be a world of 31 esoteric flavours, but this one is just vanilla.
Wednesday, the infamous Michael Horn returns to C2C to discuss the Billy Meier case. I enjoyed Horn the first time I heard him on Coast, but during the interim, I've heard a lot of negative stuff about him, to the point that I think C2C may be one of only a few shows that still even have him as a guest. Could be decent, but is probably skippable.
Thursday rounds out the week with Dr. Jeff Long, talking about NDEs. Long produced one of my all time favorite episodes, back in 2004, when he discussed the NDE of a blind woman (and even had her on the show, briefly). I will hold out that this appearance will live up to that lofty episode, but I'm afriad it may be run of the mill, instead.
All in all, a mostly "hit or miss" week, where episodes could be either quite good or really bad. The sole surefire highlight being Nick Pope on Saturday.
BoA : Audio, Season Two
This week : Paul Schatzkin, "The Boy Who Invented Television"
It's an ultrarare alternative history episode of BoA : Audio, as Paul Schatzkin joins the program to discuss Philo T. Farnsworth, who first thought of television as a farmboy and developed the invention from mere concept to the first working electric television, kicking off the television revolution in America. We follow the entire fascinating story that reads like a Hollywood movie, complete with a gang of underdog inventors, battles with big business, and the birth of a new era in media : the television.
His website is farnovision.com
You can hear an MP3 preview of our Paul's appearance on BoA : Audio on MP3 * Just right click and then "save target as". Or you can listen to it in Streaming Audio.
Next Week : Mac Tonnies (Part 1 of 2)
Esoteric pundit Mac Tonnies comes to BoA : Audio for a marathon conversation. In this first installment, we'll be discussing Mac's book "After the Martian Apocalypse". Mac tells us how he got interested in the esoteric, how his Mars work came about, his thoughts on the Martian anomalies (including in-depth discussion on "The Face") and the purported NASA conspiracy to cover it all up. We'll also smash the 4th wall and talk about the evolution of the Mars anomaly community, including Mars Face guru Richard C. Hoagland. Plus, of course, tons more.
His website is posthumanblues.blogspot.com
binnall report mailbag
Hi Tim, as Im in Australia I cant get C2C on the radio, I was wondering if there is somewhere on the net that I can get the stream or podcasts free.
Love your site man and your interviews are fantastic.
Thanks,
Rob in South Australia Yes ! Yes ! Yes ! An Australian listener ! Southern Australia at that. The tentacles of BoA reach to the bottom of the globe. I'm scared. Thanks for listening, Rob !
As I wrote Rob back, there are a myriad of ways to catch C2C if you live in non C2C territory. Regarding podcasts (i.e. MP3s), I have no clue. I'm sure if you were industrious, there are ways, but if you want MP3s of C2C, your best bet is to just suck it up and join Streamlink. It's a small price to pay for not having to deal with third party weirdos on shady and convoluted file sharing websites.
Now, regarding listening in real time, I directed Rob to the following excellent database @ Imaginative Worlds (compiled by the esteemed gormworm). That thread ought to point you in the right direction as to finding a C2C affiliate that broadcasts via their website for free. I like to think of IW as that nice desk in the center of the mall where I can find out what store sells shoelaces. They know.
Question ? Comment ? Gripe ? Query ? Love Letter ? Write to tbinnall@hotmail.com and we'll sort it all out.
This Week in C2C History
3.2.2004 : Back in early 2004, Mars images were flooding the esoteric community and no one enjoyed this Martian renaissance more than, yes, Richard C. Hoagland. A few short months after promulgating his "metal cased objects on Mars" story (which seems to be the source of the Hoags / Bell rift), he returned to C2C with startling news ... he'd discovered what he called "blueberries".
And, of course, he had an elaborate theory pertaining to said "blueberries", "Hoagland discussed the "blueberries" of Mars, small spherical objects, which he said in contrast to the photos are actually blue-green in color. He believes they may number in the trillions and could be the remnants of a collision with an exploded planet. " (c2c.com)
3.1.2003 : An absolute gem of an episode that many have forgotten. As Jose Arguelles was the guest, with Barbara Simpson (I remember her) as host. It was so good, I'm stunned Arguelles hasn't been on since. I remember when I heard it, which is rare considering how many episodes I've heard by now, and it completely blew my mind. This episode impacted my life so much, I'm still an advocate of a Moon based calendar.
End Notes
We wrap up another week around the bend. Thanks for coming along for the ride.
Plugs : Tomorrow @ binnallofamerica.com, it's Paul Schatzkin giving us the low down on the true inventor of television, Philo Farnsworth, on BoA : Audio. Sunday, Lesley looks back at the week's offerings from Coast with C2C Rewind @ The Debris Field. Monday, Tina Sena looks into the symbiotic relationship between X-Files and Ufology. Tuesday, Lesley's Grey Matters. Wednesday, Khyron's K-Files. Thursday, Hot Newz. And, Friday, another freshly sealed binnall report.
binnallofamerica.com ... have it your way.
On that note, we'll call it a week, just in time for me to eat some dinner, relax a tad, and then get to work on putting the final touches on this week's audio. Until you hear from me again, folks, thanks for reading, have a great weekend and a stress free week. This is binnall ... signing off.