6.22.7

I do love these West Coast Red Sox games, but they always end up messing my whole schedule up for the day and night. Case in point : the lateness (and scantness) of this week's binnall report.

I feel like we're still in the process of transition here and if we were a store, we'd have that sign saying, "Pardon Our Appearance, We're Remodeling". I haven't had the time, yet, to devote to fully diving into what I'll end up doing with "tbr", as we are right in the heart of the beast as far as preparing for the season finale of BoA : Audio. And ...

Next week, I will be in San Diego for a little mini-vacation. I'm not sure if I will have a "binnall report" or not, so I figured I'd better slap something together tonite, to at least let you know what was going on around here.

That said, I have been percolating on a number of avenues for future editions of this column (as I'll explain in a little bit), so bear with us while the interns finish painting the walls and the last remaining snazzy audio previews are finished being made.

As predicted last week, I only listened to a couple of episodes of Coast over the last seven days.

Before I get to the ones I did hear, I should mention that everyone was raving about guest host John B. Wells and his Ray Bradbury interview from last Friday (6.15.7). I missed it, so I can't say much about it, other than a lot of people seemed to dig it.

If there was ever an episode for me to resume listening to Coast to Coast, it was Wednesday's Richard C. Hoagland (and friends) discussing why "NASA sucks". The friends turned out to be David Livingston and Rick Sterling. I couldn't tell which was which, but one was really ornry and fired up and the other guy was kinda burned out and passive.

Despite my fears, Hoagland was actually pretty cool, calm, and collected for most of the show and I stunningly found myself in agreement with him for the first time in quite a while. And, as amazing as this sounds, I thought he stayed in the background too much ! An hour or so into it and I was kind of wishing for a three hour solo Hoag-a-thon, because I'd missed the plucky bastard so much. Good to hear you, again, Hoagie. Good episode.

The other show I managed to catch was Jesse Marcel Jr. and Stanton Friedman on Thursday, talking about Roswell, of course. This episode also managed to surpass my low expectation, as the last minute addition of Friedman made it a real "must hear". I could have lived without the Roswell 101 in the first hour or so, but otherwise it was a very interesting show.

I wanted to take some time this week to talk about what appears to be an emerging Noory backlash in the C2C hardcore fan community over the past two months or so. But ... I don't feel like I could do the topic justice this late in the writing process, already deep into a mess of BoA : Audio work, and looking ahead to a potential skipped column next week.

So, when we resume the more formal binnall report on 7.2.7, we'll delve into this thorny area of discussion in a two part manifesto, where I'll first look at the problem and then, the following week, offer some solutions to help fix it. There, now you have something to look forward to and I have something to ruminate on while in San Diego.

We'll skip over the awfulness that is C2C rebroadcasting the Brother Yahweh episode from 5.27.2005, since it's already started by now and I'm just starting to type this week's "tbr".

The weekend starts with David Talbot on "Ian" to discuss Robert F. Kennedy's quest to find JFK's killer. Dale Brown is on with Art Bell to talk about future technology on Saturday night and Sunday sees Richard Massey on Sunday talking about cosmology.

The weekday schedule has Ann Druffel on Monday in what could be an excellent episode covering abduction. Randall Fitzgerald on Tuesday will try and scare us all by talking about mutations and toxins in our everday homegoods. Wednesday, Cleve Backster will go over the "fascinating" conversion of lie detectors from analog to digital. And, in the most promising episode of the week, Mike Heiser will be on the show on Thursday to talk about the Bible and UFOs.

I'm looking forward to Ian's show, Ann Druffel on Monday and Mike Heiser on Thursday. Those look to be the keepers.

This week : Lisa Shiel, "Backyard Bigfoot"

The penultimate episode of Season Two sees Lisa Shiel, author of Backyard Bigfoot, join the program to discuss her first hand research into strange elements of the Bigfoot, including an in-depth look at stick signs and braiding the manes of horses. We'll also be talking about problems with the evolution theory and why the popular Gigantopithicus theory for Bigfoot has serious issues too. Plus, cryptozoology's infamous "natural v. paranormal Bigfoot" debate, UFOs and Bigfoot, Lisa's take on being a woman in cryptozoology, big picture speculation on what the Bigfoot might be, and much, much more.

Lisa's website is www.upbigfoot.com

You can hear an MP3 preview of Lisa Shiel on BoA : Audio HERE (Just right click and then "save target as") or listen to it in streaming audio HERE.

Next week : BoA : Audio season finale, Brad Steiger, 50 years of esoterica

The season finale of BoA : Audio, Season Two promises to be a landmark episode, as we welcome a true icon in the world of esoterica, the venerable Brad Steiger. In this lengthy and in-depth conversation, we'll be discussing what it was like for Brad to break into esoteric studies, over 50 years ago, at the young age of twenty years old. We talk about the lessons he's learned from all these years studying the paranormal, the evolution of his journey as a researcher, the explosion of esoterica from niche market to veritable cottage industry, his thoughts on the lack of cohesion in esoterica, the role of the media in covering the unknown, the hopefulness of the 1960's, the problem with today's newcomers to esoterica, and tons and tons more.

It's truly the culmination of many of the big picture themes from Season Two, posed to a bonafide first ballot esoteric Hall of Famer, Brad Steiger.

We're hoping to have 2 musical previews for the big Season Finale, so stay tuned to BoA for those over the next week.

Brad's website is bradandsherry.com