Summer 2019 note: here's the full text of an email that I sent to people who at the time I considered friends (foolishly, in retrospect).
April 26, 2000
About three years ago, I was twisting my radio dial up and down the A.M. band in the middle of the night looking for interesting snippets of talk radio to tape for inclusion in an "audio montage" to mail to my buddy Ben overseas.
I stumbled upon a deep, jovial voice asking intelligent questions of another guy who sounded like a raving lunatic. The lunatic was Richard Hoagland, who was rambling about how his "hyperdimensional model" of the universe can explain alien visitations. The jovial guy (I learned when he went to a commercial) was Art Bell. I was transfixed: Hoagland made no coherent sense, but Bell coaxed entertaining theories out of him. I sat for hours and listened to the rest of the program... and tuned in the next night... and the next... and God knows how many others between that winter '97 show and tonight. Art Bell provided a forum for intelligent discourse on heretical subjects like time travel, poltergeist intrusions, and unethical government experiments on private citizens. Some of his guests (and callers, who were allowed on the air unscreened) seemed like transparent snake-oil salesmen. Some were very bright with ideas that forced me to really question my world view. Others were like Lovecraft protagonists: traumatized and clinging to the brink of sanity as they tried to explain the chilling, inexplicable events that pushed them over the edge.
Art's show was broadcast live in the middle of the night (1am-6am east coast time), the time when the background noise of real life is at a minimum. It captured the spirit of the late-night discussions of youth: Art and his guests would have been welcome additions to our high school cemetery jaunts.
In a world where broadcast "news" consists mostly of 45-second blurbs, the very format of Art's show was heretical: Art, his guests, and his callers often spent hours discussing one topic in depth. Certain recurring topics were explored over dozens of shows. I lost hours upon hours of sleep as I absorbed fascinating discourse about Ouija boards, quantum physics, and the theory that our government is spraying us with carcinogenic bioweapons via airplane contrails.
Tonight is Art's last show. It's in progress: I'm typing during the commercial breaks. Art and his family have endured multiple traumas over the past few years, so he is returning to private life to take care of his wife and son. The program, "Coast to Coast AM," will continue with a new host... but I think I'll be sleeping at night from now on.
I wish Art's show had been around as we were growing up: I can imagine sitting around a radio with y'all in a cemetery, sipping hot chocolate from a thermos and giggling nervously at the ghost stories during Art's annual Halloween "Ghost to Ghost" shows.
You know me. I'm jaded and cynical. I don't respect many broadcast journalists. But over the past 3 years, I've grown to love Art's show, and I'll miss it dearly. I'm not even sure why I'm typing this, except maybe as a catharsis to help me cope with the sadness I feel about Art going off the air.
So that's all. I'm going to turn off the computer, turn off the lights, and listen to Art's magical voice while I still can.
The nights will be a little darker once he's gone.