R.I.P. Art Bell

I wrote that "I plan on posting about the Tax Day protest in West Palm Beach, Florida, home of Mar-a-Lago, tomorrow" at the end of Watch reports on March for Science 2018 from four U.S. cities, but two events happened that convinced me to postpone that entry.  First, the D.C. Tax March is today, so I'll wait for tonight's videos to be uploaded so I can write about them tomorrow.  Second, Wochit News reported Radio Personality Art Bell Passes Away at 72.

Art Bell, the pioneering host of 'Coast to Coast AM' radio show, has passed away at the age of 72. The heavily syndicated late-night radio program themed around the paranormal and all manners of wild conspiracy theories. Founded in 1988, the show ran until Bell retired in 2007. According to reports, Bell died at his home in Las Vegas, Nevada this week. No cause of death has been announced, and an autopsy will be done in the upcoming week to learn more.

I first mentioned Art Bell on this blog six years ago in Projection is the Right's favorite defense mechanism.

I used to give out a mock award on the USENET group dedicated to Art Bell's Coast to Coast called the Green Lantern Award for Projection. It might be worth reviving that award, along with Cleopatra Queen of Denial, Brain of Stone, and others.

I mentioned Art Bell's USENET fan group later that same year in Sustainability through the looking glass with Jeff Wattrick of Wonkette.

Looks like Jeff's got Climate Change crossed with HAARP. Now, that's something I hadn't seen before, but it's been a while since I've read alt.fan.art-bell on USENET.

Yes, that kind of conspiracy theory was par for the course on "Coast to Coast AM."  It was even more so on the USENET group for his fans.  I made that clear in Recycled comments about the men's rights movement.

I came to realize that the core posters on soc.men are nearly as big a bunch of loons as the collection of kooks who post to alt.fan.art-bell, with the distinction that the garrison of Fort Machismo actually work together almost as well as the saucerheads of alt.astronomy. That combination makes the soc.fr00ts almost dangerous.

No, I did not think highly of Art Bell's online fans.  That doesn't mean I thought poorly of Art himself, despite his program being a showcase for fringe ideas, especially of the ones I mock under the doom label.  That's because he and his successor George Noory also had the late William Strauss and the still-living Neil Howe, authors of "The Fourth Turning," which I also blog about under the hedgehog, on as repeat guests.  I was grateful for his giving their cyclical concept of history a forum, enough so to forgive the rest of his kookery, if not that of his guests and fans.

By the way Art Bell wasn't the only conspiracy theorist I followed who died on Apophis Day.  Michael Ruppert did as well, although it wasn't on a Friday in 2014.

Enough eulogizing.  It's time for the music.  I dedicate Crystal Gayle's Midnight in the Desert, the theme song to Art Bell's radio shows, to him.


For his fans, I offer a song by a band I have an ambivalent opinion of, just like Art Bell, Muse.  On the one hand, they're brilliant musicians.  On the other, they're complete tinfoil-hat wearing kooks.  Here is a song about a notorious conspiracy theory, MK Ultra, which is about CIA mind control.  Art Bell even had a show about it.  Really.


The next time I post this, it will likely be the UCLA Band version.  I can never get too far away from movies or marching band with my music.

Finally, R.I.P. Art Bell.