Build Date: Wed Aug 12 21:00:18 2026 UTC
The only questions worth asking today are whether humans are going to have any emotions tomorrow, and what the quality of life will be if the answer is no.
-- Lester Bangs
Art Bell Fires a Warning Shot Across the Pigdog Bow?
1999-07-09 03:04:56
Yesterday, while checking the Pigdog Journal feedback system, I was surprised to see a letter from influential talk show host Art Bell, asking if we would mind giving him a phone call. He wanted to talk about our recent article, which is about his attempts to manage the information coming out about his feud with the former guests of his program, David John Oates and Robert A. M. Stephens.
It was flattering to get an
email message from Art because I'm a big fan of his show. The first couple of
times that I tried calling, I got an answering machine with a humorous message
telling me that I had reached a "thought recording machine," recorded in one of
Art's electronically altered voices. Eventually, I sent him email asking him
to let me know when it would be a good time to call to talk in person.
A message came in a few minutes before Art was to go on the air for that evening's "Coast to Coast" show asking me to "call now." Unfortunately, I had been out with my girlfriend shopping at Target, and I got back after the show was already underway. But I decided to wait until a commercial break and call anyway. Art's wife Ramona (I assume) answered the phone and patched me through to Art. As is my custom, I like to watch Art's streaming RealVideo "Studio Cam" every night during his show, so it was REALLY COOL to watch Art in his studio while he talked to me on the phone.
What follows is a ROUGH transcript of our conversation. I couldn't record the phone call, so this is in no way verbatim, but I sat down immediately after talking to Art, and tried to reconstruct the conversation as closely as possible.
ES: Hi Art!Art: You wrote an article saying that I am somehow having sites taken down. Talk to the people involved and see that's not true. The truth is up on the [Joe Oddo's "Shadie Pines" (sic)] site. If you go there, you will see what really happened.
ES: Yeah, I talked to Oddo in email and he said that you had mutually agreed that taking it down was the best thing to do.
Art: Yes, well, his service provider is actually giving him trouble about the site, heh. [I don't know whether he was referring to Shadie-Pines, the Shadie-Pines BBS, or one of the other linked web message boards.]
ES: Oh really?
Art: Yes. By the way, I've taken all of my stuff on my web site down too -- in the hopes of resolving the issue.
ES: Yeah I noticed that. But, Art, even if you are not asking to have web sites taken down, you are creating the appearance that you are doing that--
Art: I could not possibly do that... it's their decision to take a site down. The truth is all up there. I am not doing that.
ES: I am looking at the site right now. Isn't it true that with montana.com -- I know someone who previously worked there who said -- that you asked to have it taken down, but they refused. And he said that they had made the the decision to take the site down on their own.
Art: No, all I did was ask them to review the material. It was THEIR decision.
ES: Well, isn't it true that you had the Shadie Pines link removed from your web site because it had a link to a web BBS that had Robert Stephens on it.
Art: That was all Keith Rowland's decision. You know my web master--
ES: Yes. I don't think I should take the article down because that would make matters worse.
Art: OH NO, I just want you to tell THE TRUTH.
ES: Well, maybe I can ammend the the article with YOUR VERSION of the truth, but--
Art: NO, listen [heatedly], you go around to talk to the people involved and find out THE TRUTH and print that.
ES: But I don't think there's anything UNTRUTHFUL in the article.
Art: No, it's just MISLEADING. Listen, I have to go, I'm on the air.
ES: Okay, bye Art.
Wednesday's article, "Talk Show Wars Spin-Doctoring Backfires" prompted Art's request for a call.
T O P S T O R I E S
John Dvorak has passed. I’m of mixed emotions. First off I’m more positive about his contribution to the overall technology journalism of the early PC days through the 90s, despite how many things he got wrong. He was a firebrand and commanded attention. (More...)
America's National Recording Registry Inducts Culturally Significant Artist - Weezer!
America's Library of Congress calls them "defining sounds of history and culture" and "audio treasures worthy of preservation for all time based on their cultural, historical or aesthetic importance in the nation’s recorded sound heritage." Ladies and gentlemen, I give you... Weezer! (More...)
The Crossroads are real and The Blues is a place; The enduring myth of Robert Johnson (More...)
California Glory Hole attracts huge crowds
A glory hole at Napa's Lake Berryessa is drawing huge crowds. According to Chris Lee, the general manager for the Solano County Water Agency, the glory hole hasn't been active since 2019, and only restarted operations on Feb 4. (More...)
Republican State Senator busted after soliciting a teenage girl
Republican State Senator Justin Eichorn of Minnesota was arrested for soliciting a teen girl on Monday just hours after he introduced a bill proposing "Trump derangement syndrome" (TDS) as a form of mental illness. (More...)
Parents claim measles is not that bad after having only one child die
The parents of a Texas girl who died from the measles are defending their decision not to vaccinate their daughter. "She says they would still say 'Don't do the shots,'" an unidentified translator for the parents said. "They think it’s not as bad as the media is making it out to be." (More...)
C L A S S I C P I G D O G
Suru and I were at the local supermarket recently when we found ourselves in the booze isle, surrounded by rum. Banana rum, coconut rum, vanilla rum, unfiltered run, Jamaican rum, rum, rum, and more rum. We bought one of each and started experimenting... (More...)
Three Days and 25 Spocktails: A Cautionary Tale
Johnnie Royale picked me up from the dental surgery. I felt warm, safe, cradled in the anathesia's loving embrace. The pharmacy downstairs gave me a bottle of Vicodin and a few instructions: take it with food, don't mix with alcohol, don't operate heavy machinery. I put it in my pocket and we left. "Do you want to go home, or do you want to go to a bar?" asked Johnnie. (More...)
A Day in the Life of a Beverotologist
It was starting to look like a very boring Saturday, trapped as I was in the suburban wastelands of the outer Bay Area, so I called my Able Assistant (AA) and proposed that we perform some Spocktail field tests. For some time I've been working on creating the quintessential cinematic beverage and even tho' SMRL does most of its testing during nocturnal hours, this seemed an opportune time to roll up the sleeves of our labcoats and get some science done. While the beverotology creation tested this day (The Neurotoxin) must be deemed a success, this article focuses more the journey of the experimenters, rather then the science of beverotology. (More...)
There are two kinds of Assmen in this world. Wild, hairy assmen, who put stickers that say things like "Why Be Normal?" all over their trucks and drink Corona beer and wear fezzes at parties for attention; these are the Assman Desperados. Our job is to ferret them out and expose them. (More...)
Paranoid Strippers & Psychotic Crack Dealers (Tales of Christmas Eve)
Christmas day, for the last 17 or so years has bored me. I find that the real fun and excitement always takes place on Christmas Eve. Every other year, it's the excitement of the metaphorical hunt instead of the kill. Otherwise, it's just plain bad craziness. (More...)
About 14 years ago when I was on a road trip and stopped in Seattle, I was invited to a party. At this party there were these little tiny glasses sitting in a flat-bottomed bowl of ice. Thin cylinders about an inch in diameter and 4 inches tall, with thick glass at the bottom. Into these were poured frozen AKVAVIT... also known as the water of life. (More...)
