Post
by sasebo63 » 07-22-2007 08:32 AM
I first picked up the coast to coast show in 1990; I was working graveyard shift at a power plant in the desert in Bakersfield, California.
The power plant routine is rather long and boring, and one night I decided to go sit in the company truck and turn the radio on, while I was scanning the radio dial I came across this show on the air, and it was about aliens and UFO’s. It was John Lear.
I was captivated by the show, and listened to it, until it ended around 4am I believe. Well I went back to the company truck the following night and tuned into that station again, and there it was again, this guy named Art Bell, but this time I tuned in to hear some guy named Charlie the Liberal. It was funny, Art handled him with finesse.
Well I eventually bought a radio and put it in the control room, and became a avid listener, and the rest is history.
I listened to Art every grave shift all these years, about fifteen or so, but I quit listening every time Art retired, when Art came back then I tuned in again.
I rarely listen to coast to coast anymore.
A huge part of listening to the show was to hear Arts voice, Art has the ability to bring an air of excitement to the listeners,
he is a master at leading and interviewing his guests, and asking the right questions, in fact the same questions that I myself might ask. He is a fantastic listener and is genuinely interested as I am to hear what the guest has to say.
I listened to the show for two reasons, One, was to hear Art himself, and the other was for the shows content. When half of that pie went away, so did I. Art has that laugh, you know, it's contagious.
I do not judge Art, as we all have skeletons in our closets, we all point fingers at a person for having one fault, when we ourselves have ten.
Although I don’t know why he can’t come around and see that 911 was DEFINITELY an inside job, there is no question in my mind after seeing all the facts, he must have his reasons, because Arts no dummy.
Some coast to coast fans are upset with Art, because he never gives notice about his retiring, he just quits, he just says well this is it folks, I'm leaving the air tonight, and he does it in the last two minutes.
You see Art is spontaneous, this is what makes him who he is, and this is what made him so great at the helm of the airwaves.
Did it upset me? Yes, because it's like not being able to get that fix, to get that high. It’s a letdown for sure. Now it is boring again, and all I can hear is the roar of the gas turbine engine and the generators outside the control room, because the radio just sits there, with the power off, and it will stay off as a reminder that the master is gone, Elvis has left the building.
There is no other Art Bell, there never will be, there was only one Johnny Carson, and when Johnny retired, I rarely watched the tonight show anymore.
I watched the tonight show to see Johnny, to watch his antics, he made me laugh, and I am grateful to Johnny, but I rarely watch the tonight show anymore.
Not to take anything away from Jay, but I watched to see Johnny.
This is the same way I feel about Art, I listened to Coast to hear Art, he made my night, he was a familiar voice in the night, he was always there, when I was down, when I was feeling depressed, somehow just tuning into Art at night fixed everything. While driving down that dark stretch of desert highway late at night, I could scan the radio and find Art, and drive until the show was over, then find a motel for the rest of the night.
I made many trips over the years, and while driving down those lonely dark highways late at night and into the wee hours, Art was there with me in that automobile.
I remember when I was stationed in Japan when I was in the military in the 70's. There was time when I got lonely and depressed being there, but every night when I went back to the barracks, and tuned in to Armed forces TV network, I turned the channel on to the tonight show and there was Johnny, and suddenly everything was ok again.
I was back to my center, I was stabilized, and I went to bed at peace.
I am sorry, but I cannot listen to George SNoory, his voice is disengenuine, there's something phony in his voice, and there's no raw spontaneity with those screened calls, he’s flat boring, and just sounds like he doesn’t really care. George is the Jay Leno of radio, he's ok, but he can't capture my heart, Art did that, he captured my heart.
All good things must come to an end, and in this life all we really have is our experiences and memories. I am grateful to Art and he will forever remain in my memories, I can laugh to myself just thinking about Art doing such things as deepening his voice to sound like the devil, when that one caller tried to talk in a deep satanic voice claiming to be the devil, but Arts voice was deeper and scarier. That's funny, Art gave us humor, he gave us sadness, he gave us memories, and he gave us all of those human emotions.
In fact my life was changed by a caller, that said something and that led to something else, and so on, and today I teach a very important subject, and all because I had tuned into Coast to coast that night. Art forgot to hit the mute button and a caller gave out an web address, which led to some great understanding, Then Art said, I don't know why I wasn't able to hit the mute button, I never miss that, that's the first time I let someone get away with giving out a web site address. Well Art you missed that button, because I was supposed to hear it, and I did.
My life is not so shallow, that I cannot make it through the grave shifts without Art, but it sure would be nice to come to work 10:PM Pacific time, flip the radio switch on and sit back in my control room operators chair and hear , good evening all across this great land of ours or wherever you might be, welcome to coast to coast AM, I'm art bell, and have we got a show for you all tonight, hang on we'll be right back, don't touch that dial. Then…..some killer bumper music, that only Art could give us, because he had such great taste in music.
I didn't touch that dial Art, it's still on that frequency, except that the waves are not coming in or out of it any more. The radio just sits there in the widow seal in the control room, un-powered, no familiar lights on the dial, no voice coming out of it. It sits there as a reminder only. Although I would gladly get up out of this operators chair I’m sitting in and flip the switch on, if Art did return, until then, the radio will not get any use, at least not on my watch.
The telephone is ringing, it was the electrical grid dispatcher, he wants me to increase the megawatts to 33, I say what for, what do we need more electricity on the grid for, Art’s not transmitting, his station is down, and we have all turned our radios off, so why the need for the extra megawatts, “he says what”? Never mind, I was just rambling, 33 megawatts coming up, logs it in the logbook, and increases power, I hear the gas turbine roaring louder as the generator loads up. As I increase power, I still can’t help but thinking, why? Who is using all this electricity at midnight. I think that I should be decreasing the megawatts instead of increasing them, maybe since everyone has turned their radios off, it created a load imbalance on the grid, and caused some type of upset or maybe the vars were sucked down to a critical point, and the only way to restore it was increase, instead of decrease. See what you did to the power grid Art? It’s all screwed up now. Now I just got a call to decrease the megawatts back to 22, this has been going on since Art left the air. Very strange.
I believe what is happening is that millions of people switch on their radios to see if Art is back on the air, then all of the sudden they need more power, so the dispatcher calls for an increase, then when these millions of people hear It’s still George Noory, they all turn their radios off, and boom, we’re back to lowering the grid power again, and the grid has been swinging like this for weeks. I believe I recall this grid upset every time Art retired. I’m not joking either.
The power grid here in Bakersfield, runs all the way up central California across into Nevada. Hmm…, this might make a great coast to coast topic. Western power grid fluctuates wildly every night, since Art bell retired from radio, says one operator in Bakersfield, Ca.
This thing is causing me to get my lazy butt out of my comfortable control room chair and walk over to the control panel, and press either the up or down megawatt control buttons every night, it’s getting kind of old.
The high desert will never be the same. It’s a beautiful clear night out tonight, and as I look up to the stars, I see Arts name written in them, and I can even hear his voice still reverberating through the ether as it bounces off of the ionosphere and back down again, forever going into the night, then through the great ELectron gate of Orion past the horse head nebula and past the Seven layers of stars onward into the Dark vastness of deep space. The Tao says: 'When you go into the dark and this becomes total, the darkness soon turns into light.'
Art was that Light in the darkness of the night.
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