Topic: My list: Art Bell's worst interviews

[Ghost to Ghost]

Art Bell's Worst Interviews

1) John Lear: Very obviously a guy who basks in daddy's millions and has never lived in the real world. When it came time for open lines, people would call in with questions like, "Do you think there are aliens in our galaxy and why?" and he'd respond, in his annoying voice, with a one-word response: "No." The caller would ask why. "I'm not going to tell you why," Lear would say, "except to say that I'm privvy to some secret information you don't know, and I have it on good authority there are no aliens in this galaxy." He was also adept at simply making shit up -- for John Lear, a hastily-constructed lie is better than admitting you don't know the answer, and you can always fall back on cryptic one-word replies if you get yourself into trouble.

In addition to being an all-around douchebag and terrible interviewee, John Lear belongs to the same school of CIA covert-ops pretenders that boasts Steven Seagal, Frank Dux and "Jack" Idema. Like his fake CIA classmates, John Lear's more fantastic claims of military glory have been debunked all over the web. If we prosecute dirtbags who fake injuries or combat heroics to get medals, shouldn't we prosecute retards who use the media to spread vanity stories about their own fabulated covert ops heroics?

2) Neil Slade: The Wand Guy. The first time I heard this guy, I tuned in just as he was describing a supernatural sound: "PONG! It's PONG!!!! But I spell it PAAAANNNNNGG!! PONG! It sounds just like that PPPAAAAANNNGG!"

I've heard this dude ramble for hours at a time thanks to Coast to Coast AM, and I still don't understand what he's going on about. Apparently, you can turn every day objects into magic wands, which can let you travel between dimensions and achieve warp speed. But they don't actually have to be wands -- cameras, pillows, empty water bottles and slices of cheese work, too. It's my understanding that Neil Slade has been a guest three or four times, several of those during the Noory Era, so we can look forward to hearing him again. God help us.

3) Jose Escamilla. It takes a special kind of a retard to film motion-blurred bugs and insist they're as-of-yet undiscovered alien beings which "zoom around the Earth at 21,000 miles per hour" when it's been proven, conclusively, that they are bugs. Yet another guy who uses Coast to Coast as a venue for hawking his newest DVD, book, or convention appearance. Jose Escamilla knows it's all bullshit, the listeners know it's bullshit, but the only people who seem to be fooled by this are George Noory and Art Bell. Pure retardism. At least the extensive debunking by a videographer who proves they're motion-blurred bugs flying 41 mph is an amusing read.

4) Melinda Leslie: Another person who relies heavily on telling fantastic stories of covert ops teams and top secret government projects, she uses shows like Coast to Coast AM to sell her books and promote her UFO convention appearances. Several of her speeches are available on Youtube, where you can listen to her talk about how aliens can hide in the closet and come out from underneath the bed in order to terrorize you. I wish I was making that up. I'm not. I put in her in the same category as the "ghost hunters" that appear routinely on the show, the same type of clowns who are now all over TV with their night-vision cameras, going into old prisons and yelling, "OMG! Did you see that? Did you hear that? We didn't get it on camera, but..."

5) Richard Hoagland: Dude has appeared on Coast to Coast countless times over the past two decades, and EVERY time he's on the show, he's going on endlessly about some great secret that's only months from being revealed. And of course, Richard Hoagland knows The Great Secret, but cannot share that knowledge with the Coast to Coast audience, for reasons he doesn't elaborate on.

Hoagland is also fond of claiming he has massive support from employees inside NASA, employees who are supposedly too scared to come out and admit they believe in pyramids or blurry "sphinx faces" on Mars. Yet another dude who rakes in the cash off gullible people.


In the interest of posting something positive after all that negative, I plan to post my list of Art Bell's best interviews. Terence McKenna, Graham Hancock and Michio Kaku definitely make the list. To be continued...

[KnyeGuy]

Art Bell's Worst Interviews

5) Richard Hoagland: Dude has appeared on Coast to Coast countless times over the past two decades, and EVERY time he's on the show, he's going on endlessly about some great secret that's only months from being revealed.

LMAO!!!! I can't count the number of times I've heard him on Coast and the situation is exactly as you described it... In a mere couple of months "disclosure" is imminent because of 'such and such' that will be taking place. And of course no one ever grills him after the fact about how NOTHING transpired (especially Noory who seems overly enamored with Dickie).

[mikemcc]

Art will frequently call people to task when their predictions didn't pan out, though he does his fair share of letting things slide. You are right about GN -- he rarely if ever asks his guests about failed predictions from earlier shows. I think that's because he does not remember much of anything from one guest appearance to another. He's just trying to get through each show with as little dead air as possible so nothing really gets into his memory banks to begin with. And I doubt that he or anyone else on the staff takes notes about things guests say or predictions they make.

[Michael Vandeven]

g2g...
i like your list.  however, i'm at a loss because i've never heard an interview with neil slade, jose escamilla, or melinda leslie.  of the remaining two i HAVE heard, i couldn't agree more. 

regarding lear: if you go back and listen to one of the shows art did with him from las vegas before he was syndicated nationally, you'll hear so much subsequently disproved shit emanate from his hole it'll make your head spin.  the best way to b.s.-test someone is to listen to their interview 18 or 20 years after it was recorded.  gives you some otherwise inaccessible perspective on what an arse log they were (and are).

i need add nothing to your hoagland assessment.  spot on. 

i'd like to add ed dames to this list of atrocious, dvd-hawking scam artist guests who repeatedly give new meaning to the word FAIL.  year after year he dumps these cryptic, cleverly unmeasurable "predictions" on the audience (and host) and is held accountable by nobody.  the repeated appearances of dames coupled with the lack of objective criticism and assessment by the host are in my opinion one of art bell's greatest professional failings.  art couldn't have found a better guest with whom to damage his own otherwise impeccable credibility.

click for a tribute to the magic of ed dames.

[EvB]

click for a tribute to the magic of ed dames.

I got a 404

[Zaqir]

The thing about your list is that yes some of those guests are super annoying but honestly the earlier interviews were some of the best most classic ones ever.

You knew alot of it was BS but the topics and Art's ability for a good interview just made you feel like you were having fun.

I can go back to those interviews over and over again and enjoy them to be honest.

[EvB]

You knew alot of it was BS but the topics and Art's ability for a good interview just made you feel like you were having fun.

yep.

[KnyeGuy]

You knew alot of it was BS but the topics and Art's ability for a good interview just made you feel like you were having fun.

Agreed... No matter how full of BS a guest was it was usually still damn entertaining. That's what was cool about the show with Art. You either got some really good information or you just simply couldn't turn off the radio with such promise of hilarity from the guest and those crazy "unscreened" callers! More often than not, Art's own sarcastic inflection was enough to make listeners erupt with laughter.
I started listening regularly in 2001 or so when Art always had Ed Dames and Red Elk on... The endless prophecies of doom and talk of lizard people etc was great fodder for laughter when the callers poured in.

I guess to put it as simply as possible, with Art you never really knew what to expect so you kept on listening even when the show seemed full of nonsense (which was fairly often lol). And the icing on the cake were those shows that were actually quite creepy, philosophical or scientific.

Noory seems less and less interested in the topics and the show as time marches forth...UGHHHH....why is he still there? I miss the show dammit!

[Michael Vandeven]

The thing about your list is that yes some of those guests are super annoying but honestly the earlier interviews were some of the best most classic ones ever.

You knew alot of it was BS but the topics and Art's ability for a good interview just made you feel like you were having fun.

I can go back to those interviews over and over again and enjoy them to be honest.

you know something, you make a great point. 

as an example, i cite ed dames as being an example of a complete disaster.  however, those early dames interviews were, to me, some of the best moments of art's good ol' days.  but, i acknowledge the convoluted nature of what i just said.

[Ghost to Ghost]

Unfortunately I can't say I've ever enjoyed a John Lear or Jose Escamilla interview, nor did I enjoy the others I mentioned.

For me, the difference is whether it's intellectually stimulating or interesting, even if the guest's theories are on shaky ground. For instance, Graham Hancock's Orion Correlation has been shown to be a template you could superimpose over existing architectural structures -- it's possible to find a section of the sky that lines up to the major buildings in Manhattan, and to attach significance to that the same way Hancock sees significance in comparing the Giza pyramids to Orion's belt.

But at the same time, Hancock was a real journalist working for a major, respected publication, and he knows how to research and dig up information. So even if his more fanciful theories, like the aforementioned Orion Correlation and the idea of the necropolis as a "spiritual conduit" are questionable, it's still obvious Hancock knows what he's talking about when discussing the weathering patterns on the Sphinx, or the palimpsest at Abydos, or his research on how the flood myth appears in various incarnations in almost every major human religious history.

Likewise, I may not agree with Terrence McKenna on all points -- having used mushrooms myself, I tend to believe the hallucinations are all in the head, and not extra-dimensional "machine elves" imparting mind-blowing knowledge to people who reach that plane. But I do find value in McKenna's assertion that certain drugs can make us think in ways that are simply not possible otherwise, and that the revelations and visions brought on by psychoactive substances can tell us a lot about the human brain, perception, and our own thought processes. I can also admire a guy like McKenna for his intellect and his humility.

But I absolutely can't tolerate assholes who use the show as a venue to brag about themselves, or to sell DVDs and books. I don't for a minute believe John Lear was a covert CIA guy, and I don't enjoy listening to serial liars make fantastical, vague and ridiculous claims about alien encounters.

I think a good example is contrasting some of this stuff with a guy like Michio Kaku. In the most recent of his appearances, Art Bell asked Kaku a vague, ill-informed question about possible human "evolution" toward artificial existence, making reference to familiar Hollywood images of man-as-machine and such.

And Kaku responded by talking about how some people believe human neural pathways can be replaced by machines, but even attempting it wouldn't be possible until we fully understood the brain and how it works. I found this interesting because it's a concept that's been explored in "serious" SF -- for instance, in the Alastair Reynolds book "House of Suns" which describes a man who replaced his biological brain, neuron by neuron, with nano-machines until he became a fully artificial consciousness.

Contrast that with guests who have talked about the sci-fi aspect of something like this, with absolutely no concept of the underlying technological issues. I forget who the guest was, but I remember once hearing a "futurist" discussing these things with Noory, and it was painfully obvious the guest could not grasp even basic networking concepts. If he doesn't understand how that "magic box" in front of him sends and receives data traffic, the technology and protocols it's based on, or the current limitations of networking and hardware, how exactly is he going to make informed predictions about how that technology will look a hundred years from now?

I suppose this is a long way of saying I can take some bullshit if it's sprinkled on top of solid research or knowledge, but I can't take an entire serving of bullshit, especially when it spans four hours and is served by a self-aggrandizing, DVD-hawking retard.

[saab93driver]

I'd agree with the list of worst but when it comes to the best interview list take exception.  I really don't care for the Kaku interviews all that much.  I'm a Mechanical Engineer so physics is an area I have studied and is of interest but Kaku's string theory topic just doesn't intrigue me that much, or at least not his presentation.  I get fired up when I hear Art might be on with a new show and then it's a hard on kill when Kaku is the guest.   Ed Dames is another on that list of ones I don't care for.  Also the GIS with their EVP's - I like it in small doses - like maybe an hour,  but not a full show.

[Ghost to Ghost]

I'd agree with the list of worst but when it comes to the best interview list take exception.  I really don't care for the Kaku interviews all that much.  I'm a Mechanical Engineer so physics is an area I have studied and is of interest but Kaku's string theory topic just doesn't intrigue me that much, or at least not his presentation.  I get fired up when I hear Art might be on with a new show and then it's a hard on kill when Kaku is the guest.   Ed Dames is another on that list of ones I don't care for.  Also the GIS with their EVP's - I like it in small doses - like maybe an hour,  but not a full show.

I think Art Bell deserves some of the blame for that, because while he's great at pageantry, atmosphere and asking questions that scratch the surface, he is not good at delving deeper into the things Kaku talks about.

So while he'll ask, "In the future, would it be possible if...?" he won't follow up with in-depth questions, because he doesn't seem to understand the underlying issues, whether they're technological, ethical, etc. For Kaku, I'd imagine it's like having a conversation with someone with the attention span of a gnat -- always asking about something that could be discussed for hours, but jumping to the next unrelated question after three minutes because he's not thinking about the details.

Problem is, any show that gets into technical details is going to have a much smaller audience. Like Art, the callers come up with questions like, "Do you think Star Trek transporters could be built in real life?" and they're interested in the end result, but they are not interested in the details or the 'why' of whether it's possible or not.

[Traveling Executioner]

I love Art Bell on account of his style and showmanship, he's always entertaining, however Ghost to Ghost was spot-on about some of the crackpot guests that have appeared on the show. Ghost's description of Neil Slade attempting to phonetically describe the 'ponging' sound of a magic wand left me moist-eyed at the lunatic absurdity of it, and even Phil Hendrie couldn't dream up more ludicrous crank than John Lear. The only real mystery is how Art was able to keep a straight face!
 

[EvB]

The only real mystery is how Art was able to keep a straight face!

That's why there are mute buttons ;-)

[neilslade]

Stumbled upon this entertaining thread looking for something else online...

Re: My list: Art Bell's worst interviews

1) "..I've heard this dude ramble for hours at a time thanks to Coast to Coast AM".."

Your next topic... let me make a prediction with my frontal lobes:

"How I spend hours of my time nailing my thumbs to the floor in self-mutilation"


2) Been a regular guest since 1997, 14 years, an average of 1 appearance each year, missed a couple of years, did more than once interview for a few.  So, with me and my rambling math brain-- that's 14 appearances.

3) Your "quote"?  You are reading my books and visiting my web site on the sly, you devil you! That's where you got the spelling.  (Guess you are too embarrassed to say, "yeah, I was intrigued enough to check out the guy's site..."  come on, fess up...)

For those who missed this awfully terribly masochistic opportunity,  that particular "wand" show was to demonstrate the sound of skipping across parallel realities, and I demonstrated using a percussion instrument used by the Indian drummer Trilok Gurtu.  You copied the spelling from my pages-  I'm happy for that. 

4) My work for the past 30 years has been to is to look at all the ways people can tap into their brain's potential. I then write books about it, talk on the radio and TV. You might have caught one of my interviews, perhaps the one on CBS News. (Canada)  They are particularly fond of interviewing people that are both boring and nonsensical simultaneously.  If you missed that one, I think its on YouTube in a few places, or among my own rambling and terribly tedious clips **REMOVED**

Try on "The Travelers" for size. If you think my interviews make no sense- that clip will have you spinning in an virtual epileptic fit.  Till you figure it out.

The idea that one only uses 10% of one's brain has been referred to as "myth" by skeptics and some conventional "scientific" types. I believe 10% is far too generous an estimate. To revisit:

1) "..I've heard this dude ramble for hours at a time thanks to Coast to Coast AM".."

 

For those interested in my demented and twisted logic, I refer you to this page: **REMOVED**

Over the years I've looked at a wide variety of methods for changing consciousness, including the Post Harry Potter feeding frenzy, a look at  the tools we all carry around in our pockets every day- pencils, pens, and things we generally take for granted- screwdrivers, keyboards, even cameras.  Then apply one's creativity to change the mundane use of ordinary tools into Unusual Tools to access different modes of experience- "Travel" as it were, to new dimensions of experience otherwise missed.  "Wands".

I realize it takes a little unconventional thinking outside the box to understand such a concept- but what the heck.  I don't work 9 to 5, and I'm strictly a self employed writer and musician that does nothing but play all day, so  I've got a lot of time to kill with my rambling disconnected synapses.


By the way, love your avatar.

Neil

[Michael Vandeven]

By the way, love your avatar.

Neil

the avatar to which you refer is a default avatar the system chooses if a user doesn't select an avatar.  as you might have noticed, you also have chosen no avatar.


oh, and i love it when guests come here to defend/explain themselves.  you have my respect, sir.

[Digitech]

Feel free to explore the forum, Neil.
 
It sure would be interesting to hear the perspective of a person who's actually been a guest on the show.

[nolimits]

My favorite worst interview is always Evelyn Paglini.  She sounds like a witch smoking 2 packs a day.  Art would always take her at her word.  He really liked her.  I have no idea of her accuracy, I never really cared enough to look into it.

[beachcomber]

Over the years I've looked at a wide variety of methods for changing consciousness, including the Post Harry Potter feeding frenzy, a look at  the tools we all carry around in our pockets every day- pencils, pens, and things we generally take for granted- screwdrivers, keyboards, even cameras.  Then apply one's creativity to change the mundane use of ordinary tools into Unusual Tools to access different modes of experience- "Travel" as it were, to new dimensions of experience otherwise missed.  "Wands".

Suddenly, I'm seeing the brain as one of those tools.

There is a huge gap between reality and its representations.Or so it's said.

[Do you think it was angels?]

My favorite worst interview is always Evelyn Paglini.  She sounds like a witch smoking 2 packs a day.  Art would always take her at her word.  He really liked her.  I have no idea of her accuracy, I never really cared enough to look into it.

Art!  The fires!  The fires, Art!  Art, the fires!!!

[999]

I like Paglini.

My personal peeve is Dr (Dentist) Bruce Goldberg

http://www.demonoid.me/files/details/2248994/26405520/

ugh

[The General]

Stumbled upon this entertaining thread looking for something else online...

Re: My list: Art Bell's worst interviews

1) "..I've heard this dude ramble for hours at a time thanks to Coast to Coast AM".."

Your next topic... let me make a prediction with my frontal lobes:

"How I spend hours of my time nailing my thumbs to the floor in self-mutilation"


2) Been a regular guest since 1997, 14 years, an average of 1 appearance each year, missed a couple of years, did more than once interview for a few.  So, with me and my rambling math brain-- that's 14 appearances.

3) Your "quote"?  You are reading my books and visiting my web site on the sly, you devil you! That's where you got the spelling.  (Guess you are too embarrassed to say, "yeah, I was intrigued enough to check out the guy's site..."  come on, fess up...)

For those who missed this awfully terribly masochistic opportunity,  that particular "wand" show was to demonstrate the sound of skipping across parallel realities, and I demonstrated using a percussion instrument used by the Indian drummer Trilok Gurtu.  You copied the spelling from my pages-  I'm happy for that. 

4) My work for the past 30 years has been to is to look at all the ways people can tap into their brain's potential. I then write books about it, talk on the radio and TV. You might have caught one of my interviews, perhaps the one on CBS News. (Canada)  They are particularly fond of interviewing people that are both boring and nonsensical simultaneously.  If you missed that one, I think its on YouTube in a few places, or among my own rambling and terribly tedious clips  http://www.youtube.com/neilslade

Try on "The Travelers" for size. If you think my interviews make no sense- that clip will have you spinning in an virtual epileptic fit.  Till you figure it out.

The idea that one only uses 10% of one's brain has been referred to as "myth" by skeptics and some conventional "scientific" types. I believe 10% is far too generous an estimate. To revisit:

1) "..I've heard this dude ramble for hours at a time thanks to Coast to Coast AM".."

 

For those interested in my demented and twisted logic, I refer you to this page:
http://www.neilslade.com/Papers/how.html

Over the years I've looked at a wide variety of methods for changing consciousness, including the Post Harry Potter feeding frenzy, a look at  the tools we all carry around in our pockets every day- pencils, pens, and things we generally take for granted- screwdrivers, keyboards, even cameras.  Then apply one's creativity to change the mundane use of ordinary tools into Unusual Tools to access different modes of experience- "Travel" as it were, to new dimensions of experience otherwise missed.  "Wands".

I realize it takes a little unconventional thinking outside the box to understand such a concept- but what the heck.  I don't work 9 to 5, and I'm strictly a self employed writer and musician that does nothing but play all day, so  I've got a lot of time to kill with my rambling disconnected synapses.


By the way, love your avatar.

Neil
www.neilslade.com
www.bookofwands.com

Really enjoyed your appearances in the late 90's and early 2000's, Neil.  I have to admit that I haven't heard many since then, I tuned out of Coast for the most part after Art left.  I sat one day for hours in Yellowstone Park in the late 90's and tried to bust clouds with my brain power by clicking my amygdala, I was really surprised when it seemed like I was making some progress.  It was fun.  Interesting to think about what the brain may be capable of that we don't know about.  Thanks for posting here at Coastgab.

[Roger]

I have no problem with the idea we use 90 per cent of our brains at all
times.

It is the unused 10 per cent that might be troubling.

[onan]

I'm not gonna get into a debate about how much of our brain is used.
 
I will say a few things. Our brain ounce for ounce is an energy nympho. It uses more energy than any other organ even when you are sleeping.
 
Scans of the brain show activity in all areas at all times. If we used only a portion of our brain, chances would be brain injuries would be much less traumatic.
 
The only area that the 10% may be arguable is in memory capacity. No one that I know of has ever done a study on a brain's memory capacity.
 
As far as forgetting where are keys are... the more significant issue is, even though we may not know where the keys are, we haven't forgotten what they are used for.

[EvB]

As far as forgetting where are keys are... the more significant issue is, even though we may not know where the keys are, we haven't forgotten what they are used for.

When my Mother first started having serious memory issues as she ages, that was the metaphor the doctor used. "Don't worry when she can't find her keys - worry when she forgets what a key is for"


It was a comfort, first, for my Mom's sake - second - because  I am someone who often has no idea where she left her keys, purse, asthma inhaler - you name it!

[Roger]

That's a pretty good point about brain-scans. While we're not there
as far as functional MRI scans for the entire body, it would be interesting
to see what lights up elsewhere in the spine while the brain is lighting
up.  The spine is not just a delivery system.  There is grey matter in the
spine too. In reverse: grey matter inside, white matter on the outside.

[onan]

That's a pretty good point about brain-scans. While we're not there
as far as functional MRI scans for the entire body, it would be interesting
to see what lights up elsewhere in the spine while the brain is lighting
up.  The spine is not just a delivery system.  There is grey matter in the
spine too. In reverse: grey matter inside, white matter on the outside.

Actually MRI's are capable of incredible imaging of the entire body. There is a variation on an MRI called MEG (dont ask me what it stans for) magnoelctorazmatazz... It is an amazing test. They inject some kind of magnetic fluid into your blood, then direct a patient's thinking and can trace the magnetized fluid to specific areas of the brain within a milimeter. It is more complicated thanI explain, because it is well out of my area of understanding. But it is a neat/cool test.
 
Oh and Art's worst interviews... I never really looked at it from what Art did wrong. I have always thought when his interviews went wrong it was because the guest was unable to communicate effectively.

[Treading Water]

Oh and Art's worst interviews... I never really looked at it from what Art did wrong. I have always thought when his interviews went wrong it was because the guest was unable to communicate effectively.

Ah, even an expert dance instructor looks like a boob when his partner is stepping all over his feet!   

[Silent]

Actually MRI's are capable of incredible imaging of the entire body. There is a variation on an MRI called MEG (dont ask me what it stans for) magnoelctorazmatazz... It is an amazing test. They inject some kind of magnetic fluid into your blood, then direct a patient's thinking and can trace the magnetized fluid to specific areas of the brain within a milimeter. It is more complicated thanI explain, because it is well out of my area of understanding. But i

I work in medical imaging but hadn't heard of this MEG exam before.  Here's a photo of one I just found.



This kid looks jacked into the Matrix or something.  I'd be interested to see how the IV injection reacts in order to give the results.  Cool stuff.

[Roger]

That is interesting.

I'd like to see the entire body 'lighting up' at once with any stimuli.

Cross-indexing, alone, provides most complete information.

I worry about 'atomizing' of attention to selected segments and attempting
to derive some general information thereby.

One thing I've thought about is: the 'ghost limb' effect.

Suppose an acupuncturist did work with an amputee. Not on his body, but
on his or her 'ghost-limb'?  Could be a test of the 'aura-body' theory.

What happens when a stimuli is applied to the area where the limb, now
'absent', would be: according to functional MRI?

I maintain that just looking at reactions in the matter in the skull is
not a truly complete 'brain-scan', since there is 'brain' in the entire
spinal cord as well.