Remembering Art Bell-Radio Stories-Legends-Podcast 714

Remembering Art Bell-Radio Stories-Legends-Podcast 714

Radio legend Art Bell passed away on Friday, April 13th 2018. Bell’s show, Coast To Coast, was creative and unique. Time to talk about Art’s impact on me and reminisce about radio in Remembering Art Bell-Radio Stories-Legends-Podcast 714.

All Night Wonder

Many stayed up all night to listen to the show. Who got any work done when we stood around talking about Martians, ghosts, aliens living in the hollow earth or The End Of The World?

Saving AM Radio For A Time

These days, radio has become a wasteland of partisan political operatives shouting, cajoling, attempting to persuade. Many broadcasters have given Rush Limbaugh credit for ‘saving AM Radio’, and he certainly deserves his props. On the other hand, many forget that Art Bell probably had as much to do with resurrecting the AM Band for a short time during the 1990’s. For a kid from Chicago who spent summers sitting on the front steps all night listening to the radio, that meant something.

Creating A World You Could Never Forget

Furthermore, it isn’t the political shows I will remember from the past twenty years. It’s the Art Bell shows. The guy from Area 51. Father Malachi Martin. Gary North. Ed Dames and every other crazy person on that show. You knew it was nuts to believe this stuff. But when you’re rolling through the wastelands of Wisconsin at three in the morning, struggling to pull in a thousand watt AM station out of Rice Lake, it seems real. Because Bell was so good at creating a world where anything was possible and probably true.

For radio people, the ability to create a new world, using only spoken word, is truly significant.

The Broken Down Radio Station On The Edge Of Town

Art Bell had a big impact on me because he brought me back to my roots. The radio station in a corn field. On the edge of town. A single tower blinking red in the wilderness. The possibilities endless.

When The Guy On The Radio Was Your Best Friend

So it’s time to tell some stories. A tribute of sorts from someone, like many, who never knew Art Bell. As a listener we felt we he was our best friend. A throw back to the DJ’s of the 1960’s and 1970’s on the big AM stations in the big cities. Or to struggling to pull in a radio station with a big signal in a far away city.

A Voice In The Night

Most noteworthy is the fact that the experience of listening in the night is gone. Replaced with artless and amateur You Tube Channels predictIng the end of the world.

Making Magic

It is good to remember the magic that Art Bell created as a guide for podcasters. I doubt seriously radio will ever be able to accommodate a talent like Bell again.

Sponsored by Reliafund Payment Processors and Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul

Remembering Art Bell-Radio Stories-Legends-Podcast 714

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Podcast 568-BobDavisPodcastRadioShow-51

Podcast 568-BobDavisPodcastRadioShow-51. Setting the stage for the final two podcasts of Election 2016. Observations from the Fall 2016 mega trip. Fom Minneapolis to Seattle, down the PCH to Los Angeles, across the desert to Phoenix, across New Mexico to Roswell, up through the Texas Panhandle, through Oklahoma and Kansas back to the upper midwest. A circuit of the country that leaves an indelible impression on the eve of the 2016 election. In Podcast 568-BobDavisPodcastRadioShow-51, extemporaneous talk in four segments about the effects of travel. Seeing the country softens your judgements and opinions and strengthens the conclusion that the worldview we’re being fed in the media is not the real world. In reality people are going about their business, raising their families, living their lives. In reality America’s economy is a force of nature that does not react well to government attempts to stimulate or control it. In reality the roads and bridges are not crumbling. In reality people are not at each other’s throats. What is happening is a political realignment. Election 2016 may be the first indication of the coming realignment that may take a view cycles to work itself out. With so much focus on former ‘rust belt’ states and cities like Ohio and Michigan it is almost as if there’s a denial of the juggernaut that is the west coast, from Los Angeles to Seattle, or the industrial agriculture and energy producing states like Texas, Oklahoma, North and South Dakota. In the end, the election will be a state by state affair. In the end there could be surprises, or it may turn out to be a pretty conventional election compared to the last three or four cycles. While the media loads new story lines meant to control you, and push you into a decision, take a moment and allow this podcast to set the stage for what is about to happen. Or not. Sponsored by X Government Cars.

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Podcast 551

Escapism. Given the sour nature of our political discourse these days what do you do to escape. A morning ritual turns into a content generator for the Bob Davis Podcasts in Podcast 551 Escapism. Lately I have been bingewatching TV shows on Netflix and iTunes, with the HBO series “Shameless’ and especially this weekend to watching the entire first series of the Netflix show “Stranger Things”. Stranger Things does such a great job creating an alternate reality, you just can’t get enough. Usually when people recommend TV shows I’m like, “Yeah whatever”. Stranger Things is the exception. What a great show. Getting back to the morning ritual; Every morning I get up, make coffee and head over to the park. I sit on a hill, drink my coffee and am alone with my thoughts. No phone. No social media. No talking to myself at least for that first few minutes of awake time. It’s been great for listening to the thoughts bubbling up from the subconscious and figuring out how to do podcasts about them. This weekend’s binge viewing of Stranger Things made me think about Escapism and how important it has apparently become considering the election year we’re having and coverage of it. When I first talked about the News Cleanse about three years ago on these podcasts, I had no idea it would end up having the power it has to generate new and different things to talk about in the podcasts. I know that, given the current discourse, I don’t want to be a contributing factor to what amounts to misinformation on breaking news stories like the attack at the Mall in Saint Cloud this weekend or the daily and predictable back and forth between presidential candidates trying to capitalize on these kinds of events. Aside from the stuff that actually moves the needle; shifts in the polls, candidates collapsing in public, huge breaking stories like a financial collapse or some major shift in policy from the current administration, it’s ok to check and once in awhile on political news, but I just can’t muster the intellectual interest in the day to day nonsense that seems to animate everyone on the radio, television and on the Internet. What do you do to escape? Movies, Trips to the Wilderness? Binge Watching shows. Drugs and alcohol? How much escape is too much escape. What is healthy escape? How many want to escape, and what happens after the new president is inaugurated in January 2017. Sponsored by Hydrus Performance.

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