Art Bell gets even weirder

I worked the night shift for a year when I was in college in the 1990s, during which time I became hooked on Art Bell’s Coast to Coast program. Bell was a black helicopter-type conspiracist until the Oklahoma City bombings, when that sort of thing became un-fashionable.

Keeping the conspiracy edge, he kept on with ghosts, UFOs and other strange phenomena. It was a great show. I mean, he was completely credulous with his guests and callers — and it worked. One moment, he’d agree with a caller that UFOs were aliens and the next, he’d agree with callers that UFOs were demons. Beautiful. It was just thing to listen to while filing papers at 3 a.m. or working on a term paper as the dawn began to break.

It was the perfect diagram of the fringe in the 90s : Art’s nonsense fueled the public’s fascination with the paranormal, which inspired the media, which, in turn reinforced the paranormalists viewpoint. Said differently, Art’s show was turned into the X-Files, which then served as further evidence for Art’s show.

Art made a mint off of it.

Less appealing was his personal life. When Art left his show for the first time in the late 90s (I belive, I’m going from memory), it happened while undergoing a horrible family crisis (his son was sexually assaulted by a teacher and had contracted HIV).

Not too long ago, his wife Ramona passed away, only for him to marry a young — really young, as in 30-40 years younger than Art — Filipina woman (Ramona was also Filipina, I believe) that he met over the Internet (natch).

He moved to the Phillipines, where she had his baby and he hosted the weekend edition of the radio show. Then they moved back to Pahrump, Nevada. He had another baby and has since, more or less, retired.

The soap opera gets weirder in the recent issue of Philly Weekly, where a mailroom manager at Philadelphia magazine named Vincent is revealed to be Art’s first son from a much-earlier, previously undisclosed, marriage. (This kid’s mom was Japanese — Art presumably met her, and began his Asian fetish, while he was stationed in Okinawa.)

Art abandoned Vincent, his mother and baby sister when poor Vincent was three. Years later, his sister tried to contact Art, during which time he pulled this cool move:

Later, when Minei turned 28, she says she sent a letter to Bell, who had by then achieved fame. He responded with a one-page letter. It reads: “Many years ago I spoke with your mom. She told me that you and [Vincent] had been adopted by the man who had married her. It seemed better to let your family remain undisturbed. She told me he was a wonderful man who was father to you and Michael … ”

He also sent a signed copy of his autobiography The Art of Talk. The inscription reads: “To Lisa, Here’s the ‘rest of the story.’”

Tacky bastard.

What gets me is that Bell abandons these kids (who were subsequently abused by an unnamed person, not Art) and he doesn’t consider it abandoning by any means.

Bell says, “I guess I wasn’t ready to apologize for something I didn’t know I had done. I’m not the kind of person who abandons people, and I didn’t think I had abandoned them.”

That’s just weird. My daughter’s two and — this isn’t about my ego here — but I can see she would be devastated if I left and never spoke to her again. She knows me. She loves me. She needs me. I’m not the greatest father in the world, I’m sure, but jeez, how could he had thought it wouldn’t matter?

That’s sociopathic, right there folks. I liked him better when I thought he was just a pandering douchebag, manipulating the gullible.

[link]

UPDATE: According to the wiki, he had a second Japanese wife before Ramona.  Not that there’s anything wrong with having a “type” — but this isn’t so much a type with this guy than it is a collection.