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I have a feeling that I may settle in on Saturday evenings for the posting time of the binnall report, at least until BoA : Audio comes back in the Fall. The extra few hours allows for me to add more text content and rely less on the "gimmicks" that we used to use. As such, this week's, we'll hit the following spots ... C2C's Art Bell Tribute
It's the binnall report ... and it starts now. |
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On Wednesday night, Coast to Coast AM tackled the daunting esoteric question, "How do you celebrate someone retiring for the fifth time ?" Their answer : a jam packed "tribute" episode, that's how. Thus, they presented the "Tribute to Art Bell". Much like the Roswell festivus, this episode had its good and bad parts. The good stuff consisted of a mammoth fourteen guest lineup, plus a written statement from Michio Kaku (unfortunately not a haiku) and tons and tons of classic clips from previous Art Bell shows. George Noory deftly handed all 14 pop-in guests with his usual stellar work as the "straw that stirs the drink" and he, thankfully, wasn't too excessive or ham-handed when he put over Bell as a legend. I'd say it was a very strong episode and ought to be a contender for Coastie of the Year. That's not to say it wasn't without its foibles. The big problem was that it was more than a little weird (and not in an esoteric way). It came off in some ways as if Art had died or something, not like he'd only retired for the fifth time in 7 years. It reminded me of one of those gala pro. wrestling retirements, where everyone is faking that the dude is gone, but you and I both know that he'll be back. That's cool for wrestling, where you are "in on the joke", but in this instance it seemed more like the joke was on C2C. That said, the mood of this episode reeked of an attempt at finality. Considering that they didn't do this for retirements 3 and 4, there may be something more than meets the eye with this one. The whole thing is kind of counterproductive to the C2C party line of "don't believe the interweb conspiracies" with regards to retirement number five. I still kind of believe that Art was telling the truth, but ironically enough, C2C is the one making me suspicious of it all, not anything I've read on the Internet. Thankfully, two of C2C's star characters realized how foolish the whole thing was. Just about the first words out of Richard C. Hoagland's mouth were that "Art will be coming back sooner than you think." That, my friends, is why he is C2C's science advisor. Ian Punnett also seemed to be amused by the episode, joking about how he gets moved around so much by C2C. At the beginning of his pop-in, he pretended like he was getting the news that Art was coming back, after all, and that he was moving back to the early show. (A conversation I'm sure he will be having at some point in the future.)
Linda Moulton Howe provided perhaps the night's most cringe worthy moment when she appeared to pay tribute to Art, but first wanted to put over some breaking news she had about some nonsensical story. Considering all the "breaking news" she's uncovered on C2C, she'd better be making some space on the shelf for that Pulitzer. Anyway, she rambled on a lot about that first, then paid tribute to Art, and then put over her exclusive story again. I got the feeling that she went over her allotted time, as you could hear Noory practically begging to get off the phone with her. One of the better parts of the episode, for comedic value at least.
I would be remiss if I didn't mention the absolute low light of the episode ... a lengthy "modified" version of "Thanks for the Memories", sung by some dude with an awful nasally voice and with lyrics penned by ... get this ... George Noory. (Seriously, that's what the C2C website says). Sadly, Noory is no Bernie Taupin. This 2 or 3 minute ear torture embodied essentially one of my biggest gripes with the show : that awful "ha ha" humour they push that just doesn't seem to get over with anyone other than the 4 people @ C2C who thought it was funny. In other words, it was the musical equivalent of Dr. Morgus.
The only other thing that really annoyed me about the episode was, and I hope this is the last time we talk about this, C2C opening up a special topic line for the "message board fans". Coming less than a week after they shut down their own Coastriders forum and purged the poor people who called it home, it comes off as more than a bit disingenuous to court them on this episode. I'm confused ... if the message board fans are the heart and soul of C2C, why did they shut down their own forum ? Also, I couldn't help but be amused by the fact that the first two such callers came from a forum that is infamous for its militant pro-Noory (or get banned) policy. Maybe there really is "no such thing as coincidence".
The pace of the 3 hour tribute was blistering, with some of those 14 guests only appearing for 3 or 4 minutes as part of a rapid fire mix that included callers and clips from past shows. At first, I was kind of down on that pacing, but in retrospect, I like it a lot, as they really crammed a lot into the whole show.
All in all, it was one of the better episodes of the year. I'm sure it took quite a bit of work to wrangle all those folks together for one night, so kudos to whoever managed to get that done. I always enjoy a good light, 4th wall breaking episode and this one had that in spades. Yes, there were a few rough patches, but something tells me that C2C will have the opportunity to smooth those over when they do the next "Art Bell Tribute" episode, which will probably be in another year or two.
C2C's Upcoming Atomic Ouija Special The running theme on C2C the last few years has been George Noory's obsession with the Ouija Board. Somewhere along the way, he got it in his head that he should experiment with a Ouija Board on the show, despite talking about how dangerous it was for years before that and even mentioning it in his book. So, after weeks and months of build up, this coming Wednesday will be C2C's Atomic Ouija Special. Taking part in the festivus will be noted esoteric luminaries like Rosemary Ellen Guiley, Jordan Maxwell, Edward Cornelius and Stoker Hunt. I'm all for anything that gets Jordan Maxwell on the show. But I'm a little confused, because I thought this was going to be a Summer camp-esque night, highlighted by Noory playing with the Ouija(ew, that sounds gross). But ... the "official" preview for the episode says that the guests will be there to "discuss the history and implications of the Ouija Board, as George contemplates whether to go ahead with his planned experiment." So it sounds like Noory may not even bust out the board during the show.
I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up saying that "it's too dangerous" and that will be that. I also wouldn't be surprised if he does end up using the Ouija Board and they pull some kind of hokey stunt like having the show "mysteriously go off the air" to try and re-create that "Area 51 caller" faux hysteria. Truly, anything is possible, which gives it high potential to be a classic episode.
When I first heard the rumblings about this episode, I kind of wrote it off as another schlocky "ha ha" C2C show that would be good for a larf and not much else. But then I saw this article posted @ rense.com : Ouija Warning.
Apparently, some people in esoterica do take this idea of a live Ouija experiment seriously. Now, I can kind of write off Rense's objections, since he is kind of C2C's main competition (no matter how lopsided the battle is) so he should be getting his digs in where he can. But when someone like Brad Steiger says its a bad idea, you kind of have to take notice. The point he makes is clear and prescient and I will paraphrase it now in my own cynical style : How many morons and yokels in the C2C audience are going to run out after this, get a Ouija board, and end up getting themselves messed up somehow.
Much like the EVP fad was fueled in great part by C2C, there is danger of a Ouija Board fad coming out of this. And, if the Ouija really is some mystical door to the unknown (which I am quite skeptical of, myself), there is a good possibility of a lot of C2C "worst and dullest" knocking at that door.
Whether it is wholly irresponsible or all in good fun, the C2C Atomic Ouija Special will surely be entertaining. We'll sift through the debris of it all in next week's column.
Other C2C Stuffs The Week That Was Other than the Bell Tribute, I didn't listen to any C2C last week. I heard good things about Ian's Saturday night show with Dan Kurzman discussing WWII and Pope Pius. BoA's own Joe Vee said it was good and that's about as glowing an endorsement as he's known to give. The other additional noteworthy episode was Thursday's "Transhumanism Roundtable" which featured James Gardner, Charlie Kam, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Philippe Van Nedervelde, and Ray Kurzweil. Normally, I'd go out of my way to catch a roundtable episode like this, but holding the day after the Bell Tribute was one theme episode too many for me. Also, once again, C2C put a roundtable episode in the TBA slot with about one day of hype. Argh. I'm sure there are legitimate reasons for it, but it is maddening to see such squandered potential for C2C. In other episodes from the past week, Brooks Agnew was the Friday night pop-in for some Moon Hoax coverage, Craig Hines was the Tuesday guest talking about fallen angels, Archbishop James Long had the Monday slot to discuss exorcisms, and an Art Bell replay from 2004 with Brian Greene covering cosmology on Sunday. The Week That Is The weekend kicks off with the debut of "Art Bell : Somewhere in Time" (more on that later) featuring Richard Boylan from 1.11.2004. After that, it's a veritable Ian Roundtable as he has Coleen Rowley, Ray McGovern, and Michael German talking about terrorism and bureaucracy. This should be a good episode and an interesting look at how Ian handles multiple guests in one show. Sunday night sees a bit of a landmark episode, as Rollye James serves as guest host of the program. I was surprised to find out, by the posters @ theusofe.com, that Rollye is a woman, which is what makes this a noteworthy episode. If I recall correctly, James is the first female guest host of C2C since 8.15.2004, when Barbara Simpson made a one-day return to the show after being ousted in September of 2003 for the un-retiring Art Bell (how ironic), who returned to host weekends on C2C. (Post publication correction : BoA's Lesley reminded me that Lisa Garr guest hosted C2C on 7.1.2006, which, of course, comes after Barbara Simpson's one-off 2004 guest hosting appearance.) Despite the disdain that many hardcore C2C fans have for Simpson, I'm more than willing to give Rollye a chance to shine in this episode. Her guest is Jeffrey Long talking about NDEs. Long is a good guest for this type of situation, as he's done the show numerous times, so he knows how it works. The rest of the week is as follows ... some dude named Konstantinos will be on with The Noor to talk about the occult on Monday. Meh. Could be good or embarrassing. Tuesday is TBA. Wednesday is, of course, the Atomic Oijia Special. And Thursday is Sean David Morton making "predictions". Ugh. So the noteworthy episodes are, of course, the Atomic Ouijia episode (Wed.), Rollye James as guest host (Sun.), Ian's faux roundtable (Sat.), and, to a lesser degree, Konstantinos on Monday. Odds and Ends We found out a lot about the questions we had a few weeks back, regarding "Coast to Coast AM : Live", as C2C announced the formation of a new nostalgia based spin-off called "Art Bell : Somewhere In Time" that will take over the "Ian" slot, from 9 PM to 1 AM (ET) on Saturdays. At first, I was kind of down on this, but, having given it some thought, I've come around to liking it. For starters, it takes some of the burden off of the C2C staff, who were probably being worn thin producing 8 shows a week. Secondly, nostalgia seems to be popular again and C2C (which seems to be continually taking its cue from the WWE) is smart to jump on that bandwagon by taking advantage of its vast library of shows. My only qualm with this is that it seems like some folks @ C2C are painfully unaware which classic episodes are quality and which ones are crap. Noory, himself, even said on the Art Bell Tribute that they had a hard time finding some of the episodes because "the archive is so big." That doesn't exactly make me confident about a nostalgia series centered around Art Bell. I have it on good authority that C2C spent the early part of last week rudely contacting hardcore C2C fans online for specific dates of classic Art Bell episodes. So perhaps they are working on compiling some kind of list. Despite my disappointment for C2C's ignorance of their own history, I've long been pushing for more appreciation of the program's history, so I am cautiously optimistic about the new series. If they can really master that archive (no small task), this could turn out to be a gem of a program for those of us who came late to the Art Bell dance. If they keep rolling out episodes from 2003 and later, then it will be, for the most part, emminently skippable.
End Notes That does it for this week's binnall report. Hopefully you have been digging the evolution of the column as much as I have. Plugs : Tomorrow at binnallofamerica.com, it's Lesley's C2C Rewind @ The Debris Field. Monday, Tina Sena's Esotericana. Tuesday, Lesley's Grey Matters. Wednesday, Khyron's K-Files. Thursday, Hot Newz. And, Friday / Saturday is the binnall report. binnallofamerica.com ... something like a phenomenon. Until next week, this is binnall wishing you a stress free week, thanking you for reading, and signing off. |