(Edited and formatted by George ALEFantes)

You won't find any mention of Howard Stern or Rush Limbaugh in this tribute to the great personalities of radio. The former has all the possibilities in the world to do something special and does essentially nothing. The latter has devoted his talents to constant huckster-style persuasion and conditioning of his loyal followers in the manner of those whom he serves and without any concern for truth and honesty.

Alex Jones

The jury's still out on this guy. Like the unwritten Hollywood Movie tenet: You can deal with any conspiracy or corruption in a movie as long as you do not direct the blame at the core of government, corporate America, or the Ruling Class. It can be a "rogue" Senator or "rogue" CIA agent, but never the established system.

And so Alex Jones, though he vigorously has made a business out of the conspiracy mentality, occasionally falls short of pointing fingers and piecing together the larger picture. Additionally, his Websites curiously employ intrusive and suspicious ActiveX controls, but still function properly without allowing them. He otherwise makes a great deal of alternative information and reporting available on his Internet radio broadcasts, his stable of Websites (JonesReport.Com, PrisonPlanet.Com, and InfoWars.Com), and as a regular guest on the "Coast to Coast AM" radio show.

Phil Hendrie

In a tradition which spans Candid Camera through MTV's "Boiling Points," Phil Hendrie has distinguished himself as a magician and a sheer genius. He refers to what he does as "theater of the mind."

Surely influenced by the underground tapes of the Jerky Boys, Phil Hendrie not only took it to a higher plane, but had the diversity of knowledge, experience, and the absurdist point of view to support it.

But where the Jerky Boys targeted a single unknowing and unwitting victim by telephone, usually an employee at a business, Phil Hendrie reversed it and made his victims the multitude of people calling him instead; in addition, of course, to many of his listeners, as well.

He was the interviewer of a series of guests, a corral of about twenty with some random other experiments. He was the voice of every guest, whether child, woman, Middle Eastern, or Black. His voices were not particularly great, nor did he believe they were, nor was that even so important anyway. For those few callers who questioned the curiously similar smoker's voice of all of his various guests, the current guest would usually turn it into some kind of degrading insult to put the caller off balance. Very often, callers who doubted the veracity of the guests or their stories would be attacked by the guest character. Once, the guest told Phil Hendrie that this caller is a stalker who calls to harass him on every show he supposedly appears on.

He also kept a phone number that the guest could give out during the show to convince the doubters that he or she was authentic. Each day before the show, Phil Hendrie's character would leave an outgoing message that the callers could later hear if they called to verify the guest.

The first night I heard him, the guest was a gynecologist who was being sued for his regular practice of slapping or striking his patients in the pain and excitement of their childbirths. Callers were livid about his casual description of the necessity for such a habit. The next hour, the guest was an old man whose friend worked at the Department of Motor Vehicles. Whenever someone cut him off or drove in any unpleasing manner, he would take down the license number and have his friend at DMV report the car as stolen. Callers were furious at his nerve. "What if it's some kid driving his father's car?" Then he'd tell the caller with a stern and authoritarian voice, "What's your license number?" And no one dared comply.

As great as the performances were, I quickly noticed language similarities between the old man and the doctor and soon suspected they were the same person. I never figured they were both Phil Hendrie. In fact, at first I wondered if he was being duped by the guests. Over the next few days, I decided that Phil Hendrie was in many ways too accommodating, enabling, and soft with his erratic and irreverent guests. So I started to suspect a connection between him and them. Later, I decided he had some kind of assistant doing the voices. Then, finally, I became one of the adepts who knew the truth.

My Wife loved him too, despite his claims that he had no female fans. Though she always had her traditional problem with the "cruelty" involved in aggressively deceiving callers and at their own expense. But I always argued that they deserved whatever exposing of their deficiencies and deconstructing of their stupidities that he could extend. And after all, once they realized the truth, they never minded: Even the callers he had driven to tears.

She and I had seen him at a signing at a car dealership and later at the LobsterFest. For the cult followers that gathered before him, he was always gracious enough to perform. He was a master of switching from a question by Phil Hendrie, the host, to an immediate answer in a different mentality, mood, character, and voice by the imaginary guest. These conversations usually went on for an hour, three or four per night, five nights a week, and going strong for over a decade. It is no wonder he finally imploded.

9/11 took a toll on his identity. Like Dennis Miller, he continued to protest that he was a Democrat long after nothing remained but the term. He became a staunch and outspoken Bush supporter and two-dimensional crusader against global terrorism accepting and adopting all of the standard right wing talking points.

But to make matters worse, he became like Lenny Bruce whose attempts at standup during his famous obscenity trial degraded to abysmal rants about nothing but his trial. Phil Hendrie set aside his art and tried to become a serious news editorialist.

Between that folly and the bitter jealousy that he openly displayed toward his wife's brother due to a combination of his brother-in-law's more liberal interpretation of 9/11 and politics in general and his wife's children's admiration of him over her new husband, Phil Hendrie, it seemed the legend had ended. He disappeared from the airwaves for a long time only to reappear on the Internet for a while and most recently to resurface on a small handful of remote radio stations again.

But whether the mastery and legend of Phil Hendrie are already a complete package that ended around September 11, 2001, or you believe that he is still a viable genius despite his letting so much reality weigh down upon his safe insanity, he will always stand out as a unique genius in the world of radio.

John and Ken

Los Angeles shock jock pair, John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou, of KFI 640 AM, a perfect incarnation in the tradition of Beavis and Butthead, Boo Boo and Yogi Bear, and Hawkeye Pierce and B J Hunnicut. John is a burst-neck-artery waiting to happen and Ken is whatever is necessary to complement John. Like most, they are extreme right wing fanatics who would have their listeners believe they are mainstream and human rights oriented. They fought bitterly to get Democratic Governor, Gray Davis, recalled, then fought harder to get Arnold Schwarzenegger elected in his place. With a vengeance, they are against all things Black and Latino, like LA's Mexican Mayor, and Mexican immigrants, but will often be found supporting Black causes when they have an indirect negative effect on Latino causes. Their enemy's enemy is their occasional friend - though they would protest that they clearly differentiate between Latinos and illegal immigrants, or undocumented aliens.

They brutally mock the homeless, and had a great, extended laugh in March of 2008 over the absurd news item of a homeless guy found dead in the San Fernando Valley streets with an arrow in his chest.

John Beavis and Ken Butthead
Created by George ALEFantes

But there is something redeeming about them both. They appear to be going through a genuine learning process. They speak about being betrayed by Schwarzenegger, Bush, and others.

But it's a long road to political enlightenment, especially starting as far to the right as John and Ken did. Most people at that extreme do not necessarily believe the rhetoric there but are usually serving as managers or agents of control for their Masters. They have since come around a bit and become just slightly more humanized.

Politically, they are in the early stages of enlightenment: Making a transition from the belief that government incompetence is the cause of all undesirable political activity to an awareness that something more complicated, and perhaps nefarious, may be involved. The road from there is long and steep and these two will never get too much further down that path.

For the most part they have found their niche by wrapping their brand of vitriolic, mocking, and hateful entertainment in a guise of being crusaders for their local listeners.

The "Coast to Coast AM" Logo

George Noory, Art Bell, and Ian Punnett

Early Art Bell

Some have said he is a pawn of the Masters who wish to have us believe in non-existent aliens, who would like us to believe that our government is doing an inept job of covering-up their existence. This view was promoted by Art Bell critic, William Cooper, who was killed in a questionable encounter with Sheriffs on his own property.

If you strip away the paranormal trappings you find an entire Rush Limbaugh cramped inside Art Bell. And they're actually good friends also. And, like any great person, he has had his share of ego-driven experiences, from his disappearances, to his move to the Philippines, his back injuries and his dramatic bouts with the pain, to his multiple retirements, to the drama created around the many scurrilous and cowardly attacks against him over the years by anonymous Internet postings.

But he's a kid at heart who loves cats and computers, found peace and solitude in his humble desert abode, achieved fulfillment in his motor home travels across America with wife Ramona Bell, whose sudden death was mourned by millions of fans and well-wishers around the world, and finally achieved a new level of happiness in his marriage to Airyn and the joyful birth of their child, Asia. He is humble and courageous about his fame, and is more gracious than most with photographs of and news about his private life.

Art, New Wife Airyn, and Asia Bell - 2007

No one can deny the legendary quality of what he has created despite the trouble he has had passing it on. Perhaps for all the regular reasons, but perhaps also because of the show's new paradigm and mandate.

Under Art Bell, the show focused on aliens and UFOs, with guests who record voices of the dead, Bigfoot hoaxes, and a slew of staged callers like J C due to their entertainment value. There were also "fun-filled" nights cleverly called "Ghost to Ghost" for callers to relate ghost stories and an annual New Year's prediction call-in night.

Art Bell

I imagine times were different and many of these issues could only be conveyed with a less serious demeanor than today.

It is still a special pleasure when he guest-hosts. He has a great voice and speaking style and is a master of drama. Yet there remains no doubt about his views. He is ultra-patriotic and disdains all opinions that have a conspiratorial flavor often displaying a curious hostility and chip on his shoulder. As if long ago he'd been warned to avoid certain views on the show. Or, simply, because of resentment over the show's more political and conspiratorial subject matter and urgent direction in which George Noory's staff has taken the show.

George Noory

A master of the short call. Whether to let a lot of callers get a chance or because it is his interpretation of a good, fast-paced show. To maintain continuity, he's also a master of hanging up on the caller at an opportune moment while continuing to talk to them. The caller could have the secret of the Emerald Tablet or the location of Solomon's Mines and he or she will be rushed off.

There is too often a shallowness of depth with Noory, with a paucity of appropriate follow-up questions. Even his guests, though treated in the highest fashion, are often swerved away from moments of deep revelation by trivial, barely-related stories from Noory's youth.

Furthermore, his convictions can take 180-degree turns from one guest to the next. One day 9/11 is foreign terrorists, the next day a possible government conspiracy. One day UFOs are aliens, the next day, secret government experiments. He is certainly not the one in question in the proverbial toolshed.

George Noory Ruminating

He is of Lebanese descent, progeny of the great Phoenicians and brethren to the Greeks in having Eastern Orthodox Christianity in common. And he looks like those life-loving, older Greeks I have known, and loves to hang out in Greek restaurants. All he needs is a set of worry beads.

He has the Benevolent Deity Syndrome, takes complements with the humility of deserving, and believes that mass-consciousness "experiments" he has conducted over the AM radio have affected hurricanes. When a caller asked him to stage one that would stop the supposed progression of the End Times, George Noory nobly declined saying, just his luck, he'd probably hasten it along. A caller heard a noise in her house, Noory diagnosed, "You've got a ghost;" another mentioned seeing dark, hazy patches in her periphery: "Shadow People." If he's not careful, they'll be forced to add a disclaimer to the show like the ones in those TV fortune teller commercials.

But he's a very hard worker, a matchless gentleman, and nice guy who demonstrates an endless commitment to his job and his listeners, even working holidays and certain weekend days as well, and above all, he's a sucker for a beautiful voice that finds him in the night.

George Noory, 10 PM - 5 AM

His warm and youthful voice, on the other hand, is a friend to all of us through our lonely and creative hours. He and his incredible radio and Web staff have taken an already successful paranormal sideshow and transformed it into a show with genuine relevance to the current age, focusing on archaeology, history, sciences, and all of the possible dangers and risks of the modern age whether celestial, economic, geological, political, medical, or even paranormal, while retaining all of Art Bell's original interests and still showcasing their entertainment guests - the ghost hunters, the numbers lady, and even J C.

George Noory Sporting a Younger Look On History Channel's Ancient Aliens

For all of George Noory's shortcomings, his shallowness of thought and his tendency to complement his guests like a chameleon, he and the staff should be commended for their superior nightly production and for providing a forum for all of the different views and voices in the first place.

Ian Punnett

Ian Punnett. We're not exactly sure what his role and relationship are to God, but he's apparently a quasi-priest or Seminarian or some such. Like the character in "Signs," he seems to waver in that capacity: At one time, he could not increase his broadcast schedule due to Theology training. Then, when Art Bell returned again, he was relegated to the early Saturday evening show that few stations even carry. By 2008, with the new "Coast to Coast AM" in full glory, Ian Punnett has reattained a position of significance.

He is by far the "smartest" host they have ever had and uses his superior intelligence and powers of reasoning to deal fairly and objectively with his guests, and no less so even when their views trample on the foundations of traditional faiths.

He is very fair and objective. He lets callers have their day in court. He shows them the ultimate respect by letting them say what they called to say and even giving them a chance to defend their positions after, albeit against the ravages of the Punnett analysis.

Every now and then, when he's in a bad mood, though certainly not that often, he uses his superior mental powers to melt his guests and callers. On those occasions he will also fail to tell us in Latin at the end of his broadcast that he and God love us.

In April of 2008, he had an unfortunate encounter with guest Steve Quayle over Steve Quayle's refusal to stay on the topic and his preference to rail about the United States economic apocalypse; perhaps as a result of one of those moods or perhaps it was due to the sheer aggressive annoyance and entitlement of Steve Quayle.

Over the next few shows, Ian Punnett apologized with certain reservations, saying that though he believed his position was correct, he could have been a more gracious host and then offered Steve Quayle an entire show that he could fully control.

Ian Punnett chose to be the better man though he may have conceded far too much. Is it not a radio host's duty to control every moment of the show, avoid dead air, fade in and out of commercials? And Steve Quayle, if it were not for the redeeming depths of his faith, might be otherwise almost useless hereafter. He traffics in ridiculous and grandiose claims; and when they fail to come to pass he fails to address his failings: "The Mexican and Canadian borders are lined with Chinese soldiers waiting to invade the United States." He can garner some degree of interest when he speaks and exudes authority, enthusiasm, and alarm, like a grandfather telling stories.

So I had to laugh when the perplexed listener called in saying "I thought Steve Quayle had said that he had spent his life studying Giants and Archaeology. Suddenly he appears on the show and he claims to be an expert on global economics."

He frankly handled the situation with Ian Punnett like a spoiled and pouting child, so consumed with himself that he felt entitled to be in control of the show.

In June of 2008, on the heels of the Steve Quayle debacle, Ian Punnett achieved a new low. He had a guest on who has his own Sunday morning radio show called "The Jesus Christ Show." The guest was announced and introduced as Jesus Christ, he played the entire interview as Jesus Christ, and Ian Punnett referred to him and addressed him as Jesus Christ, even referring to God as "your Father." There were no disclaimers or asides; just a 100% effort on everyone's part to pretend that the guest was actually Jesus Christ.

And despite the fact that he tried to play it like a good-guy Jesus, what we have come to expect of Him, dispatching advice like a righteous Ann Landers, even to a crying and desperate middle-aged caller, and even overlooking the fact that his knowledge of Bible references was B- at best, telling one caller that he knew the date of the end times, though the Bible he is aping happens to say that not even Jesus Christ knows the date, many still found it offensive and in very poor taste. Some found it an insurmountable fall for the radio program: Certainly most Christians who take their beliefs seriously, but even non-practicing and non-Christians.

George Noory and the show's producers withstood a great deal of heated criticism and all because of a decision by a weekend host who surprisingly was to be ordained in the days to come. We never actually hear, though, of just which religion he is a part. I can certainly tell which ones he could not be part of, where their authorities would share the same opinion and revulsion as many of the "Coast to Coast" listeners. I am reminded of that Letterman joke, "He went to Harvard; but it was the one in Mexico."

The following weekend he was arrogantly defiant in his defense. "Last week I interviewed Jesus Christ. It was one of the highlights of my radio career. If you enjoyed it, I'm glad. If you didn't, I hope you can learn to in the future." He mentioned it again and again as the night wore on, becoming more frustrated each time, until, against all hope of maintaining the deception, he finally blurted out "of course the guy was not really Jesus!" Like someone whose surprise had been spoiled, he cried out that when you go to a movie about Jesus, you don't see a subtitle every few minutes saying, "This is not really Jesus!" I appreciated his exasperation and even had a good laugh, but as Ben Franklin once said, "your argument is sound ... nothing but sound."

"When you go to a movie" you have willingly suspended your disbelief in advance. But when you listen to the radio or watch television news and editorials, you trust, as you always have, that the guests are indeed whom they say they are and exert your faculties instead to determine the truth of what they are saying. A Santa Claus or an Easter Bunny character would be acceptable in the same scenario precisely for the reason that everyone knows in advance that they don't really exist. So, at the very least, it was a betrayal of our trust.

And so Ian Punnett's cavalier attitude in the name of his attempt at art essentially reduced Jesus Christ to a Santa Claus or Easter Bunny figure: "Hey, you know he's not real, or if he is, he certainly wouldn't really be on a radio show. So why make a big deal? Accept it as you would Santa Claus: You should all really know better and just play along."

But that's part of the problem. No one (except perhaps a couple of people) really thought the guest was Jesus Christ. That's hardly the issue. To many, and I had always thought that that would have included Ian Punnett himself, Jesus Christ is taken very seriously, is equated with deeply-felt beliefs about eternal spiritual salvation, no less, and is not to be taken in vain.

Furthermore, many of the movies he refers to that portray Jesus Christ have caused as much if not more controversy: Portrayals of Christ's sexuality, marital status, or any excesses of license beyond the authorized depictions of his life are seldom appreciated. Ian Punnett's Jesus Christ felt qualified to play-act the true Jesus Christ for a three-hour, unscripted interview including real-time calls from listeners wherein he presumed the very mind and though processes of Jesus Christ. Hell, there are laws against impersonating police officers and doctors.

This experiment deeply offended many who had no choice but to see it as blasphemy. While the rest of us just saw it as a silly, sophomoric failure - from the interview itself through all the promotion, repercussions, and defenses.

"Coast to Coast AM" is a show that deals with many topics, many of which are urban legends and non-existent myths, but no less subject to mature discussion and professional and academic scholarship. I personally have never believed in the existence of aliens, neither on other planets or as visitors to earth, but I have studied it intensely, believe that it can be approached like any other serious discipline, and have great respect for the likes of Stanton Friedman, Jim Marrs, and others.

But when you start to put on these kinds of hip, New Age, experimental pageants, it hurts the credibility of a show that is already in a precarious position of trust among non-listeners and even among other radio hosts who precede and follow it and make fun of the show's subject matter and its listeners: People who are actually unquestionably the most intelligent and enlightened alternative thinkers who gather for any media programming whatsoever, whose levels of dedication and enthusiasm must, nevertheless, baffle and make other hosts quite envious.

In the name of Art for the sake of Arrogance and Art at any expense, I dare Ian Punnett, or rather, I hope he knows better than, to consider having Mohammed himself on as his next cutting-edge radio experiment.

Ian Punnett or Tom Petty's It's Good to be King Video?

For now, there is plenty of room for Ian Punnett in his assistant role at "Coast to Coast." He has probably already realized that, in the future, he will be the best candidate to replace George Noory when the current King retires. And, judging by his greater focus lately on science, rationalism, and the spectacle of the absurd over the faith within which he is supposedly grounded, it is now clear that he has those very intentions.

Two Sundays per month George Knapp hosts Coast to Coast AM.

George Knapp

George Knapp - Coast to Coast AM

For another perspective on "Coast to Coast AM" (and another perspective on Howard Stern, as well), the following article, created 3/8/2006 by Erich Shulte, has been mirrored from the Site, RuthlessReviews.Com:

COAST TO COAST AM

Howard Stern clearly has the best show on the radio, especially now that Artie Lang is a fulltime member of the show. After that, it's a close competition between Phil Hendrie and Coast to Coast AM. I mean, which one is funnier; Phil's Art Bell parody, in which he interviews a man on a quest to find Jack Frost, or Art ending a recent episode by announcing - quite seriously - that the next episode would be dedicated to the Mothman?

There are three basic types of guests on Coast to Coast, each with his/her own special appeal.

1 - The Legitimate Scientist or Journalist. Such guests are rare, of course, but occasionally Art will have on a legitimate researcher and ask interesting questions about cosmology, military technology, quantum physics and so forth. One of my favorites was a woman who used to work on war games for the military at a base under some mountain in Colorado.

2 - The Semi-Loon. These are people who believe in UFOs or secret societies or ghosts and are able to make cases for their views that, while not convincing, can be fascinating. These segments take me back to childhood, when I was captivated by the possibilities of Bigfoot and aliens. Sometimes it can be tough to tell if you're listening to type one or two because it's the middle of a broadcast and the guest is saying something that seems possible, but far-fetched. Art calls him "professor," but is he a professor at the University of Washington or the Interdimensional Correspondence College of Grenada?

3 - The Frothing Madman. Some of these people are just boring, like the "life number lady." For four hours she talks about how adding up the number of letters in your first name, your date of birth, and some other arbitrary crap, she can tell everything about you in vague detail. Spell your name 'Sara' instead of 'Sarah' and your life number, and therefore your entire personality, will be different. For example, instead of desiring to succeed in life, you might value close friends, long for emotional fulfillment or be characterized by some other line of fortune cookie bullshit that applies to 99% of the population. Other frothing madmen are pure gold. The best example is David Icke, who not only believes that the entire world has been under a conspiracy headed by bankers and royalty for thousands of years, he believes that those people are actually lizards from another dimension and that they have revealed their ultimate plans for us in a mural a the Denver International Airport. I love that man.

My favorite thing about the show is when Art "critically" interviews a frother with whom he agrees. He's like the "skeptical" host of an infomercial.

Art: Now, wait just a second. How can the president be a Bigfoot? He was born in Connecticut and everyone knows that Bigfoot resides in the Northwest!

Guest: That's a great question Art, and there's a simple explanation. The President in the White House is not the man who was born in Connecticut. That man was killed by Illuminati working under the direction of Grays.

Art: Oh. I seeeee.

Finally, we have the callers. Out and out loons, every single one. Most callers not only have seen Satan in their basement, but they got a ghost in their kitchen, an alien in the toilet, a shadow person under the bed and their car can bend gravity so they can travel to Venus. Seriously, like 95% of the callers would swear to any of that in court. I find it hilarious that this show--this show--has a "wild card" line. "I'm not some mainstream sheep like that guy who just claimed to be a time traveling werewolf. No, it can't be "East of the Rockies" for me. It must be the Wild Card Line!"

But there's more. On a show where every superstition, delusion, and paranoid fantasy is true, one revelation stood above the rest. Art announced that they would no longer be screening calls, which nearly caused me to swerve off the road because of the implication that they had been screening calls up to that point. Like a week earlier when a fortyish woman called in to say that aliens had landed in the tree behind her house, taken up residence in her garage and were controlling her father's mind by poisoning the milk. I'm guessing that woman was the benchmark before the screening stopped. "You must be at least this sane to talk to Art." Now, even that standard is gone. God bless you, Art Bell.

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