I was at a Science Fiction convention in Oregon where we had a local author doing a talk about his new book.
He worked at a lab for Department of Fish and Wildlife, doing DNA and other lab tests to help track down poachers. He was occasionally required to do DNA analysis on Sasquatch reports.
Apparently, he was asked to do an interview with Art Bell. The author had no idea who Art Bell was, said sure, did the interview, and was followed by crazies from them on.
In the mid 90’s, I did a ton of late night driving for work, and really enjoyed listening to Bell’s show, so I knew exactly who Bell was, as well as his audience. As soon as he said he didn’t know who Art Bell was, I started laughing my ass off, because I knew where this story was headed.
I miss that old-school High Weirdness you’d get in various formats. I think 99% of conspiracy theories are probably pure hokum, but I love the idea of them. I don’t think I ever actually listened much to Art Bell, but I loved the Art Bell bits that Phil Hendrie would do, that’s for sure.
America needs a way to get back to the days of RAW and Art Bell (and the Church of the Subgenius and Phil Hendrie for that matter) rather than taking these things quite so literally and seriously.
Eh, I suppose anything is possible, but RAW seemed to go pretty deep into this starting in the 60s and 70s, and weighing many/most ideas/reality tunnels/entire memeplexes, and still came out the other end of that with not only his rationality and a rather cool head about most of it, but also a sense of humor.
I would think being an adult in the 70s might be a Chapel Perilous just on its own, nevermind while consuming a lot of substances and hanging out with Thelemites, Leary, etc., and losing a daughter, and having that weird experience he seemed to question the rest of his life - the supposed contact.
I think it would take a lot to remain centered during and afterwards, but I guess many cognitive problems can happen with age, too. I think not a few boomers seem to have fallen into that rabbit hole, and I think at least some of it is due to some kind of mental decline.
I mean I enjoyed listening to Art Bell, and back when this qanon stuff started remember looking up some old Bell radio recordings, and , while I don’t want to blame him for Qanon because that sounds ridiculous, he most definitely had quite a few shows where it was clear he was talking about the Jews or the Deep State or the liberal media conspiracy without explicitly saying so. The people who listened to Art Bell likely found Qanon to be what they were missing in life, and his show certainly didn’t challenge guests nearly enough.
Just because he didn’t directly participate in the bigotry and racism alive in modern conspiracy theories, he helped amplify voices of those who did.
Art more just let other people talk rather saying anything himself.
There’s a world of difference between the two.
Art Bell’s “Quickening” sounds an awful lot like Terrance McKenna’s “transcendenta object at the end of time”.
Hmm. I think it’s hard to prove cause and effect, but certainly he’s one of the dots on the graph that trends towards to flat-earthers and QAnon.
IMO, that rest more on the decades long continued assault on public education more than Art Bell.
The light of reason is flickering here in the USA. I hope we can rekindle it.
i kind of already said it above, but i really think where qanon came from is different
colbert summed it up nicely once: reality has a well known liberal bias.
so what’s the choice for a white supremacist, or a follower of the orange one, qanon type, or right wing conservative? ( i know, tomato tomato. but bear with me )
they have to go with the unreal, because reality doesn’t back them up. but it’s not because they like conspiracy theories, it’s because they like the racism and homophobia
i think that’s different than the people who are skeptical about reality. they can be fine human beings just attuned to the weird.
i think the measure is not whether someone likes the paranormal or talk about aliens. the measure is whether they respect and support other people’s fundamental rights. anyway, i don’t think weird is bad, and i don’t think it necessarily leads to qanaon style racism
I never listened to his show live, but I constantly read about him on the Web. I recently listened to an interview with him from 2016 on Ham Radio podcast QSO Today and it was a great listen that I’d recommend to anyone interested in him.
I used to work a night shift doing remodels for my employer and Jay Marvin kept me company until midnight and Art Bell padded out the night.
I was always taken aback about the way people on Coast to Coast AM talked and the random people I encountered at at work, visiting gas stations, convenience stores, and 24 hour department stores at all hours of the night were essentially the same kind of people. Incoherent, sincere, overly serious, kind of blue, and dreadfully misinformed about reality. But what would you expect from people who aren’t sleeping when ordinary people were.
After a few months of remodel work, I requested a day shift and stopped listening to Bell until I began dating a girl at a college 120 miles from my place. I would listen to his show on nights driving home after a long weekend of fun. Bells show would keep me awake, but it reminded me of the confused darkness of being out and about at night and reaffirmed my being a day person.
I begrudgingly like Bell, but also think that his decades of whispering to and revving up truckers and insomniacs probably did more harm than good for the world and created a bunch of adult versions of Fred from A Pup Named Scooby Doo. At the very least, he set a blueprint for Alex Jones.
As someone who also worked graveyard and night in college for a few jobs (made it like six months, because. . . it’s different) , I get where you’re coming from. There’s a liminal feeling about being awake during the time when everyone else is asleep. Like you don’t quite belong here, you’re breaking some kind of rule, that nobody should be here. It’s a deep and profound feeling, and I suspect I know where it comes from but all the same it’s definitely there.
And the people you see during this time are vastly different people than the people you encounter during the day time. Not better, not worse, just… it’s a different set of customers, a different feeling of urgency, a different sense of … well… everything.
I made it about six months before I decided it just wasn’t for me, I couldn’t handle not seeing the sun and only seeing people in the dark.
Agree. Their style of “what if” speculation is fun as long as people keep it in the category of “maybe, maybe not”.
When people start emotionally investing in the possibilities, that leads to firm belief in them, which then leads to bad situations.
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