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The less said about last week's Red Sox v. Yankees debacle the better. I'm over it now, let's move on. It's been raining here all day, which is kind of nice, because we haven't had rain in like two or three weeks (or so).
The Red Sox falling apart notwithstanding, this time around I'm more psyched about Tuesday's release of the new Bob Dylan album "Modern Times". Bob-heads like myself have been waiting five years for another Dylan studio album and have been hearing rumours about this new album for the better part of the last year. I can't adequately express how much I am looking forward to the new album, but suffice it to say, I probably won't be talking to anyone for at least 48 hours after getting it, because I will be listening to it non-stop. Another masterpiece from His Bobness ? I hope so.
This week in the binnall report, we look back on a decent week of Coast to Coast, including an all-too-brief appearance from Andre Eggelletion and an awesome episode featuring Whitley Strieber. We look ahead to the C2C return of Alexandra Robbins and an episode based around the life and times of the infamous Robert Ripley. We dip into the mailbag for questions about BoA : Audio, Season Two and You Tube. I ask you to send in your pick for best Hot Newz ever, as we crawl towards Hot Newz # 100. We dip into the C2C history books for the finale of Biscardigate and other foolishness. And the new Fall TV season starts to kick off as Noory and Hoagland have a guest appearance on FOX's Prison Break, only in Hot Newz, of course.
So there's a lot of ground to cover and precious little time. Let's dawdle no longer.
The Week That Was
When we left off last week, we were awaiting word on the pop-in for Friday's show. It turned out that said pop-in was "Numbers Lady" Glynis McCants to talk about "The Year of 8". Following that was the usual Friday into Saturday Open Lines, with the special topic line being folks trying to convince Noory that their esoteric story was true. How is that any different from any other Open Lines night ? Obviously, I skipped out on this one.
Actually, I managed to miss most of the weekend, due to a few friends from out of town coming back into town for two days, so I was sufficiently tied up the entire time. But, we will press on with the reviews and buzz we did get on the weekend's episodes.
Starting with Saturday's "Ian", where IP had Kaayla Daniel on the show to talk about some soy conspiracy. We turn it over now to Lesley's [url=http://thedebrisfield.blogspot.com/2006/08/coast-to-coast-rewind_20.html]C2C Rewind[/url] for her take on this episode : "The great soy scam with Kaayla Daniel. Just as I thought, anything that is hyped as much as soy must be a scam. Sure I eat soy in various Japanese foods every once in a while, but drink soy milk or eat soy tacos? No thanks! So I learned small amounts of soy like what is consumed in Asian foods is OK, guzzling soy milk and large quantities of tofu or other soy, bad. As always with Ian, this was a subject that could have been completely boring, but Ian made it entertaining."
Saturday night on C2C proper, Art Bell welcomed Joshua Warren as the guest to ostensibly talk about non-human apparitions, but apparently covered a host of other topics as well. Once again, here's Lesley for her take on the episode that I missed, "This show was much better than I had expected. Warren was suppose to talk about non human apparitions and he did, but he also talked about a lot of other stuff including aliens. As I remember now I think I ended up liking Warren last time he was on too. One of the better ghost guests in my opinion."
Sunday night saw Freddy Silva as the guest, discussing crop circles. The buzz I got on this one was not good, including this hilarious three sentence post from usofe.com member WTL : "Heard it on the road, and thought about driving over a cliff to relieve the boredom/stupidity. Bell phoned it is, guest was a crackpot. So what else is new ?" You gotta love it. Sounds like I didn't miss much.
Monday night, The Noor returned to the roost and his guest was Brian Weiss. The topic was past / future lives, though it seemed like they were really only concentrating on past lives. I caught almost all of this episode, but wasn't too impressed. Much like shows with mediums, this Coast revolved around the ephemeral and contained a lot of the same basic questions that get rehashed everytime a new guest is on the show, despite the topic being beaten to death. Good for what it was, but nothing special.
Tuesday on Coast, 1st hour saw the return of one of my favorite C2C guests, the amazing Andre Eggelletion. Andre was on to talk about terrorism and the Middle East and, also, the Federal Reserve. He really needed a full show appearance to spread his wings, but what we got was excellent as usual.
The full show guest was Tom Van Flandern, discussing exploding planet theory and cosmology in general. I'm a big Van Flandern fan and he was on point during the first half of this episode and the stuff he brought to the table was fascinating as usual. I'll admit to being naive about the science involved in Van Flandern's theories, but I enjoy hearing about them, because they sound fairly plausible and interesting.
Sadly, the interview took a turn for the worse about halfway through the episode when Noory brought in Richard C. Hoagland to hog the spotlight. Hoagland felt the need to tell everyone the story of how he met Flandern, because, you know, that's really important and it makes the show about Hoagland and not Van Flandern. He was supposed to stay for a half hour but ended up staying longer and I ended up shutting the episode off once RCH's appearance bled into the final hour of the show.
By the way, I'm not sure if you've heard or not, but Hoagland has a conference coming up. Whoops, my bad, of course you've heard it, he's had numerous appearance on C2C to promote it ad nauseum.
Wednesday on Coast, TBA turned into Paul Guercio, talking about the Merlin Project. Meh. I'm indifferent to this one, as I normally loathe prognosticators, but this Merlin thing is at least based on something tangible that I can understand, instead of the usual "voices in the ether" nonsense we get from C2C "psychics". I also enjoyed how Guercio tracks celebrities, because it is a nice change of pace from the usual politics-laden episodes we get from most soothsayers on Coast. Decent, but not much to it.
Then came Thursday's episode, which was easily the best of the week, almost certainly the best of the month, and, no doubt some will say, the best of the year. A bonafide excellent episode, featuring guest Whitley Strieber talking about his new book "The Greys". Strieber covered a ton of ground and I couldn't do it justice by trying to hit on all the topics, but I will try Great stuff on the esoteric, his thoughts on the movie based on his book, his interactions with various odd creatures, and a great story on an ET that looked like an 11 year old and smoke cigarettes. Plus tons and tons more. One of the few episodes in the last few weeks that has had me listening to the very end credits.
So it was another fairly lackluster week with the notable exception of the outstanding Strieber episode last night. Next week looks strong on paper, so hopefully C2C can take the momentum of Whitley's appearance and string it out over a few more nights next week. Which leads us to ...
The Week That Is
We begin the week with the usual madness, in the form of The Noor hosting Friday into Saturday Open Lines. No word on the pop-in yet.
Saturday on "Ian", IP welcomes Marc Stevens, who will attempt to explain why "our system of government is an illusion". Sounds intriguing. I read an article along those lines a few weeks ago and it is a pretty interesting concept. How the ever-skeptical Ian will take to it is anyone's guess, but I think he'll dig it. Should be good to great.
Saturday night on C2C proper, Art Bell has Rick Strassman on the show to discuss DMT and all the hijinks that go with it. DMT seems to be the drug du jour in esoterica the last few years. Expect lots of awful to awesome stories about people tripping their cajones off.
Sunday night on Coast, Art first has Whitley Strieber on in the 1st hour to talk about his new book "The Greys". Art and Whitley have serious chemistry and a long-time friendship, so I expect nothing less than radio magic. It's a shame that we only get one hour of it.
There is no full show guest, as the program will be dedicated to Open Lines with a special hotline for those folks who have "inhabited another dimension". This is precisely why I dig Art's Open Lines more than the endless Noory Open Lines. This is a special topic line I can sink my teeth into, as opposed to the usual Friday fare of "spooky stories" or "odd cat adventures". I expect nothing less than one of the best OL episodes of the year and, hopefully, the JC / Art Bell reunion.
Monday night on Coast, The Noor welcomes one of my personal favorite esoteric / mainstream authors Alexandra Robbins. I'll admit to being more than a little worried, as her new book "The Overachievers" is not exactly C2C material, but it is the purported topic for the night. Last time that happened and Robbins was on to talk about her book "Pledged", Noory completely botched the interview beyond repair and only spent like 2 minutes talking about the outstanding "Pledged". Hopefully the same thing doesn't happen again and we aren't stuck with 2 and a half hours of discussion on Skull and Bones and ten minutes of half hearted talk of the new book.
I haven't read the "Overachievers" yet, but it is sitting on my desk in the "to read" pile and I may crack it open this weekend. That said, I'm hearing good things about it and if the show stays "on topic", Robbins knows how to bring the goods, big time. Could be disappointing, but I hope and expect it to be great. I'd mention that Alexandra Robbins is drop dead gorgeous, but that would be petty of me. (Whoops, I just did it anyway)
Tuesday looks to be another fascinating episode as Tim O'Brien will be on the show to talk about the life and times of Robert Ripley, of "Ripley's Believe It or Not" fame. An excellent alternative history type episode that you know would be radio gold in the hands of Ian Punnett. That said, I expect The Noor to produce some good to great stuff out of this topic. Hosts notwithstanding, I am weary of this episode, because O'Brien is VP of Communications for Ripley Entertainment, which means this interview will consist solely of the "party line" and surely no scandalous stuff we'd get from a truly independent investigator. Should be a fun ride nonetheless.
Wednesday, Deborah Blum is the guest. The topic is the science behind the paranormal. Noory loves science. He kind of likes the paranormal. So it should be good from that standpoint. Depending on the data Blum brings to the table and how much charisma she has, it could be excellent. I'm worried it will be a snoozer though, so listener beware.
And then it's TBA Thursday on C2C. Yes, another week with a void in the guest list. Will it finally be Jordan Maxwell (missing from C2C for over a year now) ? Or will Steven Quayle return to give us an update on his fire and brimstone perspective on terrorism ? Perhaps Hoagland will show up to promote his conference again. Okay, we all know that last one will probably happen at least twice next week.
There you have it. Looks like a good to great week ahead, especially Alexandra Robbins, Tim O'Brien, and Sunday's Coast. A lot of the episodes are touch-and-go and could crumble if not handled well, but I think there's enough there to warrant high hopes.
Hot Newz # 100 is Coming
As you may have noticed, this week's Hot Newz marks the 98th installment of the vaunted weekly satire.
In keeping with tradition, we are already working on the biggest, most elaborate Hot Newz ever for our 100th edition. But ... we want to know what your favorite edition of Hot Newz is.
Therefore, please peruse the Hot Newz archive (HERE) and send us your pick for the best of the HN bunch and, if you want to, an explanation as to why it is your favorite (or don't, it's cool).
You can send your choice to
tbinnall (at) hotmail.com
We'll share all the choices on this page in 2 weeks when we celebrate Hot Newz #100.
binnall report mailbag
Letter #1
Hey Binnall whats new with you? How is BOA season 2 coming, I only wonder what some of the guests you are working on. Later, saucy
Nice little message I received on myspace from Streamlink member Saucalito. Thanks for the message, Saucy.
We are very, very close to the start of the hype for Season Two of BoA : Audio. I'm tempted to spill the beans right now, but I'm not crazy / stupid enough to do so.
I will say that we are seriously in the thick of the production cycle now. We've taped a number of episodes already. If I were a betting man, I'd say that we will start giving out details on the new season in about 2 weeks after the Hot Newz #100 hype is over. Expect BoA : Audio, S2 to begin full-on hype mode at that point.
In other words, stay tuned. As far as what else is new with me, I'm mad at the Red Sox, excited about the new Dylan album, and have been enjoying spending some time with Joe Vee, who is back in Boston for the month. Otherwise, not much is too new right now.
Letter #2 :
Hey Timmy
When you going to put something on You Tube? I don't have all the time in the world to search through, so if you already have something let me know. I KNOW you got something awesome you can put on there. People are getting famous on there.
stay sexy, chap
Mel B. We've toyed with the idea of doing something for You Tube for a while now, but a number of things are keeping it from happening. Mostly a lack of time and resources for now. I'll confess to being painfully ignorant as to how to even go about developing something along the lines of a youtube video, so until I have the time to do the work to figure it out, it's unlikely to happen.
Plus, BoA isn't interested in the proverbial 15 minutes of fame. We're in this for the long haul, baby, we ain't no flash in the pan. That said, expect something, at some point, on You Tube from BoA.
Questions ? Comments ? Send them to tbinnall@hotmail.com
This Week in C2C History
8.23.2005 : Biscardigate finished up with the public humiliation and denunciation of Tom Biscardi on C2C. If you've never heard this episode, you simply must find a copy of it. It mostly consisted of Noory giving Biscardi just enough rope to hang himself, then kicking out the chair, and then letting the callers run in and beat him with sticks. Just top to bottom radio gold. Noory wasn't taking any guff from Biscardi and had to put him down a few times when ol' Tom tried to play the victim,
"Noory - Oh, no don’t turn it around on us and the c2c audience, at all. Don’t do that because I will go right at you for that one.
Biscardi - Well George, you have to…
Noory - You came on here, you promised that there would be a Bigfoot. See, even though The Noor lets guys like SDM and Hoagland run off at the mouth nonstop, he puts the boots to some fakers, much to the delight of C2C's more critical listeners.
8.25.2005 : Winner of 2005's special Hoagie Award in the annual Coasties Vote, it was the infamous Richard C. Hoagland v. Eric Hufschmidt moon hoax debate. An all time classic, as far as radio train wrecks go. Hufschmidt was on to ostensibly talk about 911, but veered off into discussion on Nancy Kerrigan and Moon Hoaxes. Noory finally called in Hoagland to debate him and hilarity ensued. From the 8.26.2005 binnall report : "Hufschmid was so wound up, Hoagland had to "talk him down". Think about that for a minute. When Richard C. Hoagland is trying to get you to calm down, it's time to switch to decaf. Then Hoagland pointed out exactly what I'd been thinking (that Hufschidt ruins all his credibility with his awful presentation)."
8.25.1998 : Art Bell covering Hurricane Bonnie and showing us why we needed more of him last year when it came to Katrina : "Art gives an update on hurricane Bonnie, thousands of people ordered off the coast of North Carolina. Art talks a little bit about the hurricane, and what a mandatory evacuation actually means, what does it mean to you, Art is confused. Can somebody risk their own life by not evacuating, especialy if you have a child? Art asks anyone evacuating, that happens to be listening, to take their pets with them. Art asks to hear from anyone listening in North Carolina." (artbell.com cd rom)
End Notes
Finishing up in time to run out for a quick cup of java with the notorious Joe Vee, this edition of the binnall report is a wrap. Yes, kids, BoA's co-founding father Joe Vee has landed back in Boston for the next month or so and I am fortunate enough to be able to spend some quality time with him after having not seen the mysterious theologian for almost 2 years. Tis good to have a fellow esotericist nearby for lengthy in-person discussions on the merits of Sitchen and Hoagland's bolo tie collection. Good times.
Plugs : Tomorrow @ binnallofamerica.com, we cover all the Coastie Contenders for July and the first half of August. Sunday, it's Lesley's C2C Rewind @ the Debris Field and smoker dave is updated. Monday, Ralph Molesworth's Tall Tales checks in for his third column. Tuesday, Lesley's Grey Matters. Wednesday, Khyron's The K-Files. Thursday, it's Hot Newz # 99. And, next week, we do it all one more time with the binnall report.
binnallofamerica.com ... can you feel it, coming in the air tonight ?
Until you hear from me again, my friends, have an excellent weekend and thanks for coming along for the ride one more time. This is binnall ... signing off.