Art Bell And Me

Kirk Carter@ Chew Bear Productions@ Copyright 2014

Art Bell And Me

It was the summer of 1987 and I had just returned to Las Vegas, coming out of Dallas. Previously I had just moved my Mom out there, got a chance to see the scenery and thought I'd give it a shot!

My father had just passed away, and we thought it would be good if she came someplace new to get a fresh start, a new perspective on things. Odd that she chose Vegas as her new place to call home, finally leaving New Orleans basing her decision loosely on the fact that Wayne Newton lived there! I make jest of that, but she did like the vastness of the desert and the mountains, too...

Anyway, upon showing up to Vegas, I was informed that I needed to get to work...get a job man!

Taking my first gig climbing ladders and installing cable signal extenders for Prime Cable (now Time-Warner). One of the guys I was working with was Art Bell. Pretty interesting guy, a ham radio operator, talked a lot about being a medic, stints in Vietnam such as operating a pirate radio station out in the jungle, transmitting rock music to the troops. Found out later that they used elements of his activity in Robin Williams "Good Morning Vietnam"!

So, one morning in the middle of the hot July, we were up high on a telephone pole installing connectors for the amps. Art started making his move to the other side of the pole to mount the brackets for the device. This required him to disconnect his belt for a second so that he could get through the flow of wires. I guess when he went to reconnect his belt, he didn't get the prongs all the way through the belt holes, so that when he leaned back, putting weight on the belt, it slipped open, and Art slipped out, falling backwards, falling some 25 feet, landing perfectly on his butt in a patch of grass below, as tools rained down around him from above. As I looked down, he seemed a little shaken, but otherwise okay. The next day after the MRI was performed, he found out that he ruptured some of the vertebrae in his back. Art's climbing days were over...

Hadn't really heard from him in a while, so I called his apartment. The phone rang for a while, then finally Art answered after about 20 rings. I thought that was odd since it was 5:30 in the evening. He said that he was a day sleeper now, as he just took a night job doing a talk radio show for KDWN 720, a 50 thousand watt clear channel power house that you could actually hear all the way to Hawaii on a good night. 

I was already a fan of all their shows, listened to it all the time. He told me it was from ten to two, but it changed up here and there as time went on. It was generally listed as open-format, so topics were all over the map. When I asked him how much he was getting an hour, Art laughed "That's the weird part, I get paid by the phone call...sixty-five cents for each one!"

So, it was decided on to come up with topics, that would generate calls. The first thing Art came up with (the guy was a genius), were topics discussing the paranormal, his experiences with the government, seeing UFO's, and taking full advantage of Vegas being so close to so many military installations...many being top secret (like Area 51) full of rumors and curiosities, along with the people who worked at these installations, now and the past. A lot of call-in guest were identified by a "handle" (mine was Mount Charlston) if they were current, while those long retired usually just just said, "Screw The Government...this is who I am!"

Needless to say, it didn't take long for Art to develop an avid fan base, and it soon drew attention to a young and upcoming broadcast genius himself, Craig Kitchen (the guy who brought Rush Limbaugh to the breakfast table). Craig had a little company called Premiere Broadcasting, and they agreed to contract a couple of affiliates on the west coast just to see how it went.

What turned into the now Coast To Coast-AM is worlwide with 670 something U.S. affiliates, armed service radio, shortwave, and the internet, remaining number one in it's time slot since I can remember. It's the only natinal talk show that is replayed in it's intiraty twice in the same sitting.

George Lorrey now host the show, as Art has long since retired, after living a short stint in the Phillipines, and now living back where he started on his ranch in Parump, Nevada.

I still keep in touch!