Art Bell Is a Radio God
Since I've started sleeping in 45-minute bursts (whether due to my medication or my troubled subconscious or my gas-inducing dinners, I don't know), I've become a great fan of Coast to Coast AM, a nightly program of interviews and phone calls regarding the paranormal and the unexplained. Whenever I jolt awake from yet another inexplicable dream (last night, it had something to do with two unbridled horses chasing me down the freeway outside of Layton, Utah), I lean over to hit the timer button on my clock-radio and catch up on the next 25 minutes of the show.
Art Bell, the desert-dwelling DJ who created the program, is probably the show's best-known host, he of the baritone voice and the probing interviews. Bell semi-retired from the program a few years back, but still shows up on Sunday evenings and for annual specials at Halloween and New Year's Eve.
Even more than the program's content (ranging from truck drivers phoning in with UFO sightings, to recordings of the voices of the damned in Hell, to the latest news in quantum physics), I love Bell's style of hosting. He is respectful to even the most outrageous guests and has a healthy curiousity about the stories offered by his callers. He is a model of radio professionalism and one who truly knows how to engage his audience.
At the beginning of this year, Bell's wife of 15 years died from complications due to asthma. Bell understandably spent the next few weeks off the air. When he returned to the program last night, Bell offered a stunning and overwhelmingly honest account of his wife's death and his reaction to it. It was one of the most absorbing radio broadcasts I've ever heard. It had nothing to do with the paranormal--no stories of contact from beyond the grave or moving furniture. It was one man communicating to a large audience the painful experience of the death of a loved one.
Bell made no attempt to stifle or ignore his still raw emotions. But, by the same token, he made no concessions to the audience regarding the circumstances or conditions of his wife's death. Just one man speaking of his love and his pain to an audience of millions.
After the first hour, Bell moved on to an interview with a theoretical physicist regarding parallel universes and how our own universe will end. The interview was conducted in Bell's trademark style of skepticism and fascination, but it was not hard to guess the rationale behind his interest in the possibility of multiple universes where only one event might have occured differently than in our own troubled cosmos.
If you want to hear one of the most memorable tributes to a life partner that you are ever likely to hear in a public forum (let alone on the increasingly commercialized airwaves of the radio), listen to the first hour of last night's broadcast of Coast to Coast AM.
Art Bell, the desert-dwelling DJ who created the program, is probably the show's best-known host, he of the baritone voice and the probing interviews. Bell semi-retired from the program a few years back, but still shows up on Sunday evenings and for annual specials at Halloween and New Year's Eve.
Even more than the program's content (ranging from truck drivers phoning in with UFO sightings, to recordings of the voices of the damned in Hell, to the latest news in quantum physics), I love Bell's style of hosting. He is respectful to even the most outrageous guests and has a healthy curiousity about the stories offered by his callers. He is a model of radio professionalism and one who truly knows how to engage his audience.
At the beginning of this year, Bell's wife of 15 years died from complications due to asthma. Bell understandably spent the next few weeks off the air. When he returned to the program last night, Bell offered a stunning and overwhelmingly honest account of his wife's death and his reaction to it. It was one of the most absorbing radio broadcasts I've ever heard. It had nothing to do with the paranormal--no stories of contact from beyond the grave or moving furniture. It was one man communicating to a large audience the painful experience of the death of a loved one.
Bell made no attempt to stifle or ignore his still raw emotions. But, by the same token, he made no concessions to the audience regarding the circumstances or conditions of his wife's death. Just one man speaking of his love and his pain to an audience of millions.
After the first hour, Bell moved on to an interview with a theoretical physicist regarding parallel universes and how our own universe will end. The interview was conducted in Bell's trademark style of skepticism and fascination, but it was not hard to guess the rationale behind his interest in the possibility of multiple universes where only one event might have occured differently than in our own troubled cosmos.
If you want to hear one of the most memorable tributes to a life partner that you are ever likely to hear in a public forum (let alone on the increasingly commercialized airwaves of the radio), listen to the first hour of last night's broadcast of Coast to Coast AM.
posted by Chazzbot at 3:08 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home