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Art Bell

The grandfather of QAnon?

by Anonymousreply 27June 13, 2021 2:15 AM

Yes, and I hope he and George Nory and Dan Brown all burn in hell for it.

by Anonymousreply 1December 14, 2020 3:16 AM

JC Webster should be the 2024 GOP Presidential Nominee!

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by Anonymousreply 2December 14, 2020 3:19 AM

No. Bell was a broadcaster with an excellent ear and feel for entertainment. He had an engineering background and a firm footing in reality. He was often in on the joke. He avoided politics, although he's known to have voted for Obama.

Qanon is a mind-fucky disinformation operation, probably of Russian origin, intended to destabilize the US (it's doing a fine job of it). Bell could smell disinfo a mile away, and didn't traffic in it the way the current crop of professional right wing radio treasonists do.

by Anonymousreply 3December 14, 2020 3:23 AM

I wonder how much Coast to Coast has changed over the years. I listened regularly with my boyfriend about twenty years ago. It was a lot of fun: aliens, ghosts, weird reality theories, the year- end predictions show... Has the show really catered to the dangerous Qanon stuff recently? I know George Noory has been hosting for years now. What's the vibe like nowadays?

by Anonymousreply 4December 14, 2020 4:42 AM

....

by Anonymousreply 5February 28, 2021 6:00 PM

I’ve heard it’s really bad now r4. I used to love Ground Zero with Clyde Lewis too but his show suddenly went from neutral politically to way right wing.

by Anonymousreply 6February 28, 2021 6:12 PM

Aw, I loved his show. And George Moody’s too.

I don’t listen to the Qanon shows, but I thought it was politics, not ghosts, aliens and sea monsters?

by Anonymousreply 7February 28, 2021 6:32 PM

Fucking autocorrect. George NOORY.

by Anonymousreply 8February 28, 2021 6:32 PM

[quote]He was often in on the joke.

Not some of his listeners, like my mother, who in her 60s still believes in UFOs, paranormal activities, etc.

by Anonymousreply 9March 1, 2021 3:58 PM

Art Bell was well-informed and clearly in on the joke when he had the nutty guests, and at least in the later years supported same-sex marriage, believed in climate change and endorsed Obama. George Noory is an idiot know-nothing, and has the likes of Alex Jones on regularly.

by Anonymousreply 10March 1, 2021 4:25 PM

The dirty secret is that Deplorables are anarchists. Though they'd be shocked if you pointed that out for them; they believe they are all mom, apple pie, Uncle Sam, support our troops.

In their permanently stunted brains they believe trashing everything (drain the swamp?) will erase the travesties they've made of their lives, and let them start fresh. Maybe even be a success this time (unlikely)?

But if it fails, who will clean-up their mess? Will there be grownup smart people to fix it all?

Of course Putin and China are watching all this, learning how to manipulate U.S. Americans online.

by Anonymousreply 11March 1, 2021 4:54 PM

Any podcast recommendations?

by Anonymousreply 12March 13, 2021 4:23 PM

[quote]I wonder how much Coast to Coast has changed over the years.

It's unrecognizable now compared to the Art Bell days. Art seemed to be a Democrat and politics were never a big part of his show. His shows were about fun paranormal stuff.

George Nory is a rightwing nut. He's a huge Trump supporter. He spent all of 2020 trying to convince listeners that Covid was a hoax. The only time I listen now is on the weekends when he's not hosting. The weekend hosts are not political and it's more like the old Art Bell days.

by Anonymousreply 13March 13, 2021 4:32 PM

Bump

by Anonymousreply 14June 7, 2021 4:51 AM

The paranormal podcasts that I enjoy that aren’t hosted by right wing loons are Darkness Radio and Where did the road go.

by Anonymousreply 15June 7, 2021 4:57 AM

R15 Things They Don't Want You To Know is a good podcast for fans of old school Coast 2 Coast.

by Anonymousreply 16June 7, 2021 5:25 AM

Had Art not died, I bet he would have despised podcasting and resisted it like crazy. It was all about terrestrial radio for him. He even hated the fact that he had to go to satellite radio for that short period of time. Hell, he used to constantly bitch about and hang up on callers to his shows when they were on cell phones and not land lines!

by Anonymousreply 17June 7, 2021 2:40 PM

Remember Project X? It was months upon months of Bell raving how civilization would never be the same after the X release!

It was the Segway.

Aside from that nonsense, I enjoyed his company during my overnight work shifts in the late 90s. I never liked Noory as a guest host and wasn't surprised to hear he took the show to far-right conspiracy land. Shame.

by Anonymousreply 18June 7, 2021 3:04 PM

[quote]Fucking autocorrect. George N̶O̶O̶R̶Y̶ SNOORY.

Fixed it.

by Anonymousreply 19June 7, 2021 10:27 PM

Bump

by Anonymousreply 20June 9, 2021 3:21 PM

The Hawaii kayak guy debacle reminded me of the time Art, a big ham radio enthusiast, spent part of his show taking to an old gal, in her 70s I think, via shortwave radio, from her solo sailboat somewhere in the South Pacific. She had sailed all over the world on her own, and had many tales to tell. It was fascinating.

by Anonymousreply 21June 9, 2021 3:45 PM

Aaron Paul, A.V. Club writer, discussing the Art Bell Vault in NPR interview:

SIMON: Can you - so what's the difference between the Art Bell show and conspiracy theories in broadcasting and online today, like Alex Jones?

PAUL: Yeah, that's the main thing that I find interesting about it is that the time period Art Bell was doing his thing was - I wouldn't go so far as to say it was innocuous, but it was a much - it was still relatively relegated to the fringe of American culture. The difference was that I believe he, in some ways, applied a more classic journalistic edge to it.

So it's unlike today, when you have things like Alex Jones and stuff that are not only pushing things actively that are dangerous and disseminated at much larger scales, there's also that sense of profiteering that I don't think Art Bell necessarily had. He wasn't in - he, in no way, probably made the same amount of money that Alex Jones got through licensing his...

SIMON: Yeah.

PAUL: ...Brain Force pills or whatever he was pedaling that week.

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by Anonymousreply 22June 13, 2021 1:32 AM

"It might be difficult to imagine, but there was a time when American culture’s kookier side was confined primarily to AM radio broadcasts and TLC daytime documentary filler—and not, say, disseminated wantonly to millions of people over unregulated social media, thus allowed to grow into an outsized, malignant tumor on the U.S. political body. Ah, a simpler era.

For those yearning for the halcyon days of Weekly World News and “leaked” alien autopsy footage, the folks over at Coast to Coast AM have kept beloved late-night radio oddity curator Art Bell’s legacy alive and well. Bell, who passed away a little over year ago, was the longtime host of his widely syndicated showcase of the weirder sides of our culture. To preserve and celebrate his work, Coast to Coast AM has unlocked the Art Bell Vault, a curated archive of some of the show’s best, oddest episodes for fans of all things alien, paranormal, Sasquatch, and/or just good ol’ fashioned strange".

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by Anonymousreply 23June 13, 2021 1:34 AM

It all hadn't been weaponized yet. It was fun, and maybe some people were drawn into stupid shit, but there wasn't a plan. Now it is a plan. a Very Republican Plan, that sucks and is evil. It isn't fun anymore. It is all deadly serious and nasty and neo-Nazi.

by Anonymousreply 24June 13, 2021 1:38 AM

Agreed, r24.

Access to the "vault" requires a paid subscription, thus supporting their fascist agenda, and that just will not happen.

Here's the archive .org collection instead, so fuck off, nazis!

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by Anonymousreply 25June 13, 2021 1:56 AM

Ugh! DL hates links to archive .org

Search> Search metadata

subject:"Coast to Coast AM"

by Anonymousreply 26June 13, 2021 1:59 AM

"Ghost to Ghost" Halloween 1993

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by Anonymousreply 27June 13, 2021 2:15 AM
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