Reknowned world wide syndicated talk show host Art Bell died in his home in Parumph, NV, ironically on Friday the 13th of unknown causes, speculated at this time to be connected with ongoing lung problems from a lifetime of chain smoking. He was 72.
Bell was inducted into the National Radio Hall Of Fame in 2008. Bell had a genius for radio, both as a technician and on air talent. He was licensed by the FCC when he was just 13 years old. He went on to get a 1st Class Engineers license and built his own broadcasting tower and the radio empire to go with it, in Nye County, Nevada where he broadcast The Art Bell Show out of station KNYE FM 95.1, a station which he founded. Bell’s show was renamed Coast to Coast after he retired for a time in 2009. Bell went in and out of retirement several times, most recently in 2015 when he was receiving death threats and was actually shot at once while on his way to the station. While lying in the dirt and waiting for the police to arrive, Bell decided to hang up his headphones yet once again, this time for good.
Bell was a respected political commentator for much of his career until the fateful night in the 1990’s when he was driving through the desert with his wife, Ramona, and a large triangular UFO hovered an estimated 40 feet over their car for several minutes. Bell later declared that his life changed in those minutes and that he was going to take his broadcasting the same direction. He kept that vow and began broadcasting about UFOs, time travel, speculative physics, nanotechnology, demonic possession, and climate change.
Bell’s work was meaningful to me personally because I hosted a radio show of my own in 1978 called “New Perceptions” on KWBZ in Denver, Colorado. I used to read Tarot cards on the air, do horarary astrology charts, interview occultists of all stripes, you name it. One of my best shows was on Wilhelm Reich and his theory of orgone energy, a pseudo scientific, spiritual concept which landed Austrian M.D. and psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich in hot water because it was considered indecent, orgone being the same energy as that which is released during orgasm. This was heady stuff for the late seventies. I was the only female voice on the station at this point and when I was reading news it was strange enough, but when I talked about “that crazy stuff” on Saturday morning, management could not relate.
Management was having problems anyhow because the star of the station and my dear friend, Alan Berg, had just left to go to number one rated KHOW and do his amazing liberal politics talk show there in the evenings. If Alan’s name isn’t ringing any bells with you, he was the controversial talk show host who was gunned down by two Nazis in his driveway in 1984. I wrote about that incident at length when an attempt was made on journalist Kurt Eichenwald’s life December, 2016.
I have thought of Alan Berg in connection with Art Bell on any number of occasions over the years, both because they were pioneers in talk radio and because they were threatened with violence regularly. Bell was targeted by Nazis for a time because they erroneously believed that he was Jewish. On one evening, Bell, a total cat lover, posted a picture of one of his beloved pooties online, an orange striped kitten who had fallen asleep on top of a big ball of red yarn. A caller phoned in and told Bell, "I'd like to put an M-80 in that yarn and blow that f*cking cat up and you along with it, Jew-boy." Bell cut the maniac off, needless to say, and said to his listeners, "Well, that isn't the first time this has happened, I'm sorry to say. And I don't have a drop of Jewish blood. And I'm a Lutheran."
Bell co-wrote with alleged UFO abductee Whitley Strieber the script for the movie, “The Day After Tomorrow” which made a dramatic point about climate change, but also featured an intellectually lightweight president and his older, savvy vice president who was running the show, filmed during the reign of Bush Lite.
Bell returned to political analysis, as a blogger using his Facebook page as his platform. Here’s a sampling from a piece entitled Ronald Reagan was Donald Trump until he was president.
Though there are important differences, the parallels between Reagan's political life and Trump's are downright chilling, from their media careers to the way that the press and their own party establishment viewed them.
Both positioned themselves as outsiders (Reagan, absurdly, ran successfully as a political outsider while he was the sitting president of the USA, and painted his opponent as the Beltway insider). Both offered economic platforms that didn't hold up to even the most cursory scrutiny. Both lied like crazy, about everything, and refused to answer any press questions that called them on this. Both are masters of deflection overall, brilliant at moving the focus away from their radioactively obvious shortcomings to the places where they shone.
Of course, both also had careers in forgettable, modestly successful media properties. Both had checkered pasts in which they dabbled in Democratic politics and painted that opportunism as a reason for Conservatives to vote for them. Both managed to court evangelicals despite their divorces.
Reagan's slogan? "Let's make America great again."
Bell’s shows are available in the archives of Coast to Coast. The best of them are riveting. Bell knew how to end a segment with a cliff hanger and his admonition, “Don’t touch that dial,” delivered in his sonorous baritone voice kept the listener hooked, despite the lateness of the hour.
This is a six minute clip from a 1997 show on Area 51. The caller claims to be a recently terminated worker at Area 51 who fears for his life. Is this a hoax? The real thing? The only thing for certain is that this is vintage Art Bell.
Rest in peace Mr. Bell. You’re one person whose path I would have loved to have crossed. Maybe in the next lifetime?