GabCast Bellgab.com - 19 May, 2018

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May 19, 2018 - GabCast Bellgab.com

02:00:38

19 May, 2018

19 May, 2018 ---------- On this episode, we visit with Art Bell's first son, Vincent Pontius.

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	This is the Gabcast, a podcast about BellGab.com.
	Call us now at 573-837-4948.
	That number again, 573-837-4948.
	Now here's the GAB cast.
	Normally I
	play the liner there over the intro and it just threw off my equilibrium totally.
	This is the Gabcast.
	My name is Michael Van Diev and I go by Liberace at Bell Gab.
	And we have a special guest with us.
	It is Vincent Pontius, Art Bell's.
	Well, would you call yourself Art Bell's son, or would you call yourself the recipient of Art Bell's DNA?
	Because I've seen a lot of the comments that you've posted over the years.
	And you and I, Vincent, have actually been in contact with one another on and off for probably something on the order of 12 years now, I'd say.
	Yes.
	So I kind of get the impression you may not actually use the word dad, would you?
	Most often, no, I don't.
	But I've used like really awful names like sperm donor, you know, that stuff like that.
	I don't know.
	I have to kind of depersonalize myself from him so I don't get too obsessed with the idea that he's my dad because I can't really call him dad because he wasn't really there.
	So I have to keep coming up with different weird names to kind of like pass it off.
	You know, I told you this prior to the show when we spoke.
	I really hear a lot of similarity in your voices.
	And I know that as soon as everyone listening right now became aware of who it is that's on the show, because I did try to make it a bit of a secret.
	I was just trying to scare up some listeners.
	You know, that old gag?
	So I didn't tell anybody who was going to be on the show.
	And you and I have actually never audibly, verbally communicated with one another.
	And so when I spoke with you prior to the show, it was the first time that I had heard your voice.
	But you told me that nobody ever really says to you that you sound like art.
	And the reason being, you said because you're not really plugged into that Art Bell universe very much.
	And the people you're surrounded by, they themselves are not familiar with your dad typically in order to make the comparison, are they?
	Yeah, that's true because some of my friends know who he is, but they don't necessarily listen to him or listen to him because he was on that graveyard shift, right, for years and years.
	So most of them were already asleep when that happened.
	But yeah, I don't know anybody who's actually listened to it except for Steve Volk, who wrote that Lost in Space article.
	He's the only one, but he never told me that I actually sounded like art.
	So yeah.
	So this, yeah, it's kind of a weird thing to hear.
	Like if I needed somebody to do an impression of art in order to maybe put together a parody or something like that, I would be calling you because the similarity is definitely that noticeable.
	Well, you know.
	Is it like a younger?
	I'm sorry.
	Is it like a younger version of art?
	Well, it's a less basy version of art, but I can tell there is a similarity in the shape of your throat that gives the voice a certain tone.
	I can't really verbally articulate what that is, but you just know it when you hear it.
	And he's obviously, the similarity is obvious to me.
	I will tell you something.
	His other son, Artie Jr., the one that lives in Stagecoach, Nevada, with his mom.
	He I was told that he sounds like art the most.
	He's got this really deep bass voice.
	And it always startled me every time I heard his voice.
	In the past, when you and I have talked about what that would be Art Bell IV, right?
	That was the son who was assaulted and Art was faced with the prospect of leaving the radio and dealing with that.
	Yeah, that was I'm not sure how much of it is speculative or conjecture, but yeah, I know that he was raped by a substitute teacher who, I guess, had HIV virus that supposedly infected him.
	And I guess the mothers sued the school board and they won a bunch of money.
	But around 16, when Art decided to not have any more contact with Artie Jr. IV, I think it was around that time when Artie actually, and I think this is public record.
	I think Artie Jr. tried to kill himself.
	And after that, he was never the same.
	He went and lived in the desert with his mom.
	And I had some contact with him, but he kind of trailed off and lost interest in me because whatever suicide attempt that he went through, it kind of regressed his behavior to like a 15-year-old.
	So I had no way of like talking to him because a lot of the times he was just talking gibberish, you know?
	And how old is he now?
	Oh, God, he's must be in his 30s.
	Really?
	Man, time flies, doesn't it?
	But, you know, I think he's doing well because he lives with his mom.
	So, you know, that's good.
	Is there any possibility you may attempt to rekindle communication with him?
	I've tried.
	Really?
	No, there's no interest anymore.
	He's moved ahead.
	That's fine.
	You know, like, not everybody's going to be my, he's going to be in my life.
	In the past, you had you were a little bit, I won't use the word evasive because that's got a negative connotation to it, but you simply didn't really want to talk about why Art, your dad, I'll just call him your dad for the sake of simplicity here.
	You didn't really want to talk about why your dad stopped communicating with Art IV.
	Is that something you can talk about now, or is that something you'd still prefer not to?
	Or do you even really know?
	No, I don't know.
	He wouldn't tell me either.
	Art's pattern behavior is that he would be around for two or three years and then he would just move on.
	And that's what he simply did with Artie the Fourth's mom.
	You know, he just moved on to something newer.
	You know, that seems to be his pattern.
	That's all I can say about that.
	Somebody in the chat.
	I know that the last time I talked to him, he was doing well.
	You know, he was relatively happy living out with, you know, with his mom.
	So he's got, you know, like a life that's different from mine.
	So, yeah.
	It's my recollection that that teacher was actually convicted specifically for that crime.
	I think it went beyond civil damages, if I recall correctly.
	Yeah, it was, yeah, I think that whole experience devastated Artie, too, because he was so young when it all happened and the whole court business and just it was just all a mess, you know.
	But I think his mom takes good care of him.
	And I think as long as the two of them are together, I think they'll be okay.
	And like I said, that's all I can say about that.
	Somebody in the chat wants to know if Art has, Art, your dad, has a daughter named Elisa.
	My sister, Lisa, yeah.
	Oh, okay, because apparently she contacted Art during his Reddit AMA, the Ask Me Anything prior to the run-up of Midnight in the Desert.
	I don't know what she said to him.
	Do you?
	No, actually, I don't know what they talked about, but I know that Art wasn't really interested in talking to her.
	I don't understand that.
	Because he just his figure, his the thing with him was that he just had, he just figured out that he had nothing to talk to her about.
	You know?
	And my sister has, you know, like, she's gone with her life.
	She's got married.
	She's got two beautiful boys.
	And she's been less affected as I was.
	For some reason, being the firstborn son, I just feel like I was more haunted because I feel like I'm closer to his legacy, I guess, so to speak.
	Because I'm 52.
	He was 73 when he passed away.
	So it's not like we're too far from each other.
	So I was, you know, haunted mostly by his presence for 35 years.
	You know, in the past, when you've commented on Art in message boards or in the comment threads under articles, I've seen a few different instances in which you've done so.
	And I've seen people say something to the effect of, get over it!
	What's wrong with you?
	Why were you sold in your dad's legacy?
	But I think people who react in that way don't really understand what it's like.
	I mean, I'll let everybody on in a little bit of Michael Van Deven knowledge here.
	I haven't seen my biological father since I was five.
	And I don't mean to make this about me.
	It's not about me.
	But in that way, I feel a certain commonality with you.
	And I understand how you're thinking and your thought processes.
	It's hard to, and particularly when you grow up and you have children of your own and you know how you feel about, and I know you've got children, Vincent, and you know how you feel about your kids.
	And if I'm myself, if I'm away from my kids for about 12 hours or so, that's where I start getting that feeling in my gut.
	Like I really want to see my kids again.
	And so I can't mentally process the idea of having children, your own flesh and blood, and just the I was so, I mean, the first time I had a kid, I was so interested in this thing that came out of my wife that I created.
	Wow, that is just so messed up.
	I created another person and it's 50% made of my genes, my DNA.
	That fascinated me so much.
	And I can't relate to the idea of fatherhood.
	I can't relate to being a father and not feeling that toward your kid.
	And I think that says something about somebody.
	I think Art was deficient in the emotional aspect of his life.
	I think, and I've heard this from more than several people, that the word sociopath keeps coming up in contacts and all the threads I've read.
	And I think that's where he was.
	I think he was just incapable of, you know, connecting with his kids.
	That's why I think you know he's moved on from one person to another.
	As you got older and you had children of your own, did that, and you realized how you felt about your children, did that increase the anger and resentment you felt toward him?
	Yeah, especially in the beginning, yeah, I was pretty mad.
	Um, um, because in the back of my mind, I mean, you know, age three was when he left.
	So I thought that because of you know, DNA osmosis, that I had maybe could end up like him.
	So each year, when my daughter, uh, Mary was first born, each year that passed, in my head, I silently like rejoiced, like, oh, it's another year I got by and I'm still here.
	Um, and then when the, I remember the fifth year came and went, and that's when I realized that I'm not my father, I could move ahead in my life, make my own choices, and I can finally break that cycle, you know, that kind of pattern cycle that I created all through my life.
	And it all started with the birth of my daughter.
	Um, because then I saw what it is like for her to be her, you know, her being little now, and then me being father and kind of looking inside and out.
	And then I have another daughter who she'll be 26 next week, Alicia, who I only connected with when I was when she was 11.
	I was living in Boston.
	I won't go into it, but I ended up moving down here.
	I moved to Boston in 96 from Philly, and then I moved back six years later, and I got married to this wonderful woman, Rebecca, who's my anchor.
	Anyways, and then I discovered I have this 11-year-old daughter, like, and it was like history repeating itself.
	And there was this that moment in my like realizing, oh my God, I have an 11-year-old daughter.
	What can I, what can I possibly be anything to her?
	But I got some really good advice from Patrick Ewing's brother, Carl, who used to be this delivery guy who, when I worked at Boston Magazine, used to bring the print stuff.
	And he had told me the story that he had a daughter and she had, you know, been born and he had just like took off.
	And then he had always regretted it because years later, when she was 19, she came back into his life and they couldn't pass things up.
	And I, and he told me that, don't make that mistake.
	At least, you know, go down and just see what will happen.
	And sure enough, we met, we hit it off.
	And because we had this commonality of like books and Japanese comic books and all this, and it was a good connector in the beginning.
	And to this day, she's still in my life.
	She's trying to decide whether to go to Pennsylvania Penn or Bran Moir.
	But it's like, you know, like, I'm like the proudest dad in the world.
	I have two great daughters who are just so damn amazing.
	So, you know, like now I say to myself, hey, I'm a pretty good dad.
	I've done a pretty good job.
	And I'll say this: that my wife helped me along, you know, because being a first-time dad is like the most terrifying moment in your life.
	Oh, yeah.
	It really is for a man because your old life ends and your new life begins.
	And that is a scary place to jump into.
	Anyways.
	I think if you're even asking yourself the question, am I a good dad?
	I think that gets you 50% of the way there to the finish line of actually being one.
	It's dads that never take the moment to ask themselves that question.
	They're never going to pursue the actual act, the path, the journey of becoming a good dad.
	Over the years, I'm sure that you had a few communication incidents with art.
	Would that be the case?
	I had only one real conversation with him, and it was on the kind of he the conversation was always like when we started talking to each other, it was most awkward moment.
	We couldn't even talk to each other.
	And then he figured out that there was going to be that article, and he's like, you shouldn't get that published because it'll hurt your brother's, he's going to be hurt by it.
	Oh, he knew in advance.
	I thought, yeah, he might be right.
	So I was actually thinking for a second that I was going to kill the story.
	But then I realized, this is Art Bell.
	I'm dealing with someone who's not up and up.
	So he just told me this to just, I think, just kind of manipulate me into, because he was more worried about his career and what it would do if it came out that he had abandoned these children.
	But, you know, funny thing, that story got published and a couple weeks later, a couple months later, he announced his retirement from radio for the what?
	Like the fifth time or something.
	I think that article came out in 2006, if I remember correctly.
	And so I'm trying to think back to that.
	Was that the retirement where he went to the Philippines?
	Yes.
	And he met Aaron.
	Okay, so he met Aaron.
	So, you know, I had never made that connection that his departure from the United States at that time was that closely connected to the release of that article.
	But now that you say that, that kind of makes sense.
	I don't know why.
	I mean, really, even in 2006, I don't think it would have been that difficult to conduct a radio show from the other side of the world.
	And he did.
	And he did.
	Yep, and he did.
	But there was a major chunk of time where he dropped into radio silence and nobody heard a peep.
	And so now that you say that, that makes a lot of sense.
	That's interesting.
	Yeah.
	So I'm kind of wondering, have you ever considered broadcasting?
	I mean, you know who art is.
	You know what your genetic extraction is.
	So did you ever consider it?
	My wife has been trying to persuade me to do a podcast for a couple of years now.
	I think you should.
	I like your voice and you do have shades of your dad in your voice.
	And I think you would right out of the gate have a lot of listeners.
	I mean, what would you imagine yourself doing a podcast about?
	Actually, movies.
	Really?
	I really love movies.
	Well, I mean, I've been doing this for so many years.
	I'll help you out with anything you need help with.
	It's so much easier to set up than you would think.
	I would take it under advisement, seriously.
	It's one thing to hear from your family, your friends, and say, hey, you should do it.
	But then when you hear from a professional, it comes to the best.
	Well, I wouldn't say that.
	Well, you've been doing it longer than that.
	You said that you wanted to do it on movies and you started to talk a little bit about that.
	What did you want to say?
	I don't know.
	I wouldn't want to do it by myself.
	I think I'd want a partner in crime, you know, that I could riff off.
	And I have a friend, Peter, Who quite nerd out with all the time, you know?
	Um, so yeah, and he he totally like when I talk about movies, he totally understands the language and what I'm talking about, you know, because we both, you know, do a lot of research and read about like what movies are being made and whatnot.
	So, yeah, you know, like, I think movies is a good way to help people kind of escape from their problems, like, you know, and I think it engages people as always.
	You know, movies engages people like music.
	Well, between myself and the thousands of users at bellgab.com, I don't doubt you're going to have plenty of help putting that together if you ever decide to.
	I could help you with everything from the website aspect of it to the audio production.
	You get the drill.
	Just if you want to do it, give me a holler and I'll be more than happy to help you out.
	So, I mean, I don't know how relevant it is, but I mean, what do you do these days?
	I'm actually several years back, I um, on a suggestion of my wife, who was a pre-K teacher, she asked me if I wanted to, you know, possibly be her assistant.
	And it was a way of like actually leaving temp work that I was doing that was just starting to great into my life.
	And I, I, I think I just needed to get away from the corporate world and do something that really meant something.
	So, I took a chance and I ended up loving it.
	Uh, I'm not a pre-K teacher now, but um, a mentor at a rec center for an after-school program for um seven, eight, nine, and ten-year-olds who, you know, were sort of like the last defense between school and home.
	And they come to us, we help them do homework, play football with them.
	Um, recently, I've started exchanging comic books with, you know, some of my kids, some of the guys.
	And that, that, this job has like been like the most emotionally rewarding job that I've ever had in my whole life, like rewarding-wise, like feeling like I'm finally giving back to society.
	So, it sounds to me like the earlier portions of your life, there was a lot of turmoil and chaos.
	That's kind of what I've what I gather from you.
	I don't know that you've specifically articulated that, but I just get that vibe about things.
	Would you say that's pretty correct?
	Um, yeah, I mean, I will say all through my 20s and my good portion of my 30s, I was uh in a drunken stupor, yeah, you know, um, yeah, and you do attribute a lot of that, kind of just push down all that all that stuff from my childhood.
	It's okay if you curse, and and so you do attribute a lot of that to issues of abandonment, yes, that yeah, you mommies and daddies out there, listen to this.
	Your kids need you.
	I had like some issue abandonment issues a lot, you know, and um you know, I went through a lot of relationships in my 20s and 30s before the show.
	I was uh reading through our email chain, and you asked me if I was aware of someone named Heather Wade.
	And I am keenly aware of her.
	And I guess since you asked me that question, again, you're not too terribly plugged into this whole art bell universe and all of the gossip and drama that goes along with it.
	I mean, if you were a regular reader at Bellgab, you would be plugged into so many streams of information that you may or may not want to be plugged into.
	You really would go blue in the face.
	But you asked me that question.
	What is it that prompted you to ask me that?
	Because somebody reached out to me and said that Art might have had an affair, but that was all speculative that she had been living in his compound for three years.
	But I don't put any, you know, truth.
	I don't put any like anything into that and truth.
	I'm just laughing at the way everyone instinctively refers to Art's property as a compound.
	It just seems like the most appropriate word to use to describe the place, the compound.
	Whether it's the Branch Davidians or, oh, I don't have any top of mind cults with me.
	Let's see, the Heavens Gate people.
	That wasn't really a compound, though.
	That was a rented mansion.
	Yeah.
	But Heather Wade.
	Doesn't he have high walls around his house?
	I think he had a fence.
	I think it was just like a chain link fence, which really looks kind of silly, to be perfectly honest.
	When you look at this vast expansive, just sea of death and sand surrounding the house in the form of desert.
	And then there's this little chain link fence going around the perimeter.
	It just seems so futile.
	I mean, everything's just so vast and expansive.
	And, oh, we're going to stop the forces of evil after they've just made their way through this desert expanse with a fence.
	It just seemed always silly to me.
	But Heather Wade is the girl who took over Art's newest show, his latest, the final show he did, Midnight in the Desert, which, as you're probably aware, started out as an exclusively internet streaming show.
	And I think it was carried on KI pretty quickly.
	And then from there, they started picking up affiliates.
	I think at one point they were up to 50 affiliates.
	And then the whole stalker story, apparently, it began to emerge.
	Art claimed he was being stalked by somebody, that there was somebody with a firearm shooting guns at or around his property.
	And supposedly the light sensor system around his home was getting triggered and he was getting threatening phone calls.
	And then the show ended.
	And Heather Wade is the girl who was originally a user at Bellgab.com.
	She met him through Bellgab.com.
	He liked her.
	He made her his producer.
	When he quit the show, she, the night he quit, got put into the seat to do the show as the replacement host, just like probably with something on the order of 15 minutes' notice.
	I mean, it was really spur of the moment and sudden.
	And then she carried on hosting the show from that point forward.
	It was recently found, though, that, yes, in fact, as you suggested, maybe the possibility, she did move into the guest house on Art's compound.
	And then through a little searching of Nevada, or I'm sorry, if you're local, you have to say Nevada or somebody will smash your face for you, apparently.
	That's what I've been reading.
	Apparently, he sold the place to her for $85,000.
	I don't know if he self-financed it or not, but I think the thing that has got a lot of people thinking that there may have been, and I have no idea, but a lot of people are, there's a lot of speculation out there that the two of them may have had a relationship that went beyond just the professional.
	It's entirely speculation.
	I don't know that there's any evidence necessarily to warrant that speculation other than her insane reaction to the death of Art.
	I don't know if you followed any of that and saw.
	Well, she had a lot of really insane Facebook posts and Twitter posts and saying things like, I don't believe in magic anymore.
	And saying things like, now that Art's dead, I have nothing and no one.
	And so a lot of people have started to think, well, and then she did not go to the funeral.
	She was supposed to drive Art's new wife, Irene, from their home there on Art's property to the funeral home the day of the funeral.
	She didn't do so.
	And then Karen Jackson, apparently, who owns the local station Kani, had to come over and get Irene and take her while Heather stayed at, as is referred to frequently on Bellgab, the cuck shack.
	So a lot of people, because of this odd emotional attachment to the situation, are speculating that what other explanation is there for that type of reaction to that.
	So I think that the person who contacted you is probably just some random person on the internet who doesn't know anything more than anybody else knows.
	But that speculation is out there.
	But the thing that makes that really interesting now is the fact that there's a new interview with a woman.
	And I don't know if you saw this interview.
	It was recorded only, I think, three days ago, maybe four days ago, a woman who had a five-year-long relationship with Art from, I think, 77 to 82 or 78 to 83, somewhere in there.
	And apparently, she and her husband lived close to Art and his wife at the time.
	And by the way, the woman that she names as Art's wife is a woman that none of us have ever even heard of before.
	So was there a wife somewhere in that time period that isn't your mom and isn't either of the women who he subsequently married?
	I think I know who it is.
	It's my other, I have another stepbrother, Kevin Yanagna, half-brother, who I think it was his mother during that time.
	Kevin is 41, 42.
	He's closer to my age.
	Well, not closer to my age.
	My sister Lisa is.
	Yeah, it was his mom, but they weren't together that long either, you know, apparently.
	Well, according to this woman in this interview, Art and this woman routinely had sex parties.
	Like, I guess you would just call them orgies.
	I don't, for lack of, I can't imagine what better term there would be.
	And they invited this woman and her husband to join them in these sex parties, according to this woman.
	And I think she's entirely credible because just in tone of voice and her physical presentation, she has a handwritten letter that she asserts to have been written by Art.
	And it's like a love letter, but it reads more like a manipulation letter than a love letter.
	And so this woman's husband ended up getting together with Art's wife.
	And yeah, that's right.
	And then Art ended up getting together with this woman.
	Boy, that's a confusing thing to work out in your mind.
	And based on what she, when you hear crazy stuff like that, which I don't know how crazy it is to say that people have sex parties or orgies.
	I mean, whatever gets you by, whatever gets you through the night, it's legal.
	It's not illegal.
	But she actually used the term sexual deviant to describe him, which that I thought maybe was a bit too much.
	But when you hear things like that, and then you look at the speculation that people are engaging in in order to explain some of Heather's reactions to his death, her public reactions, certain things start to make more sense than maybe you'd like them to.
	I guess question number one: have you heard anything about that interview that that woman gave?
	No, I haven't even.
	Again, I read like a brief synopsis of like whatever it was.
	Apparently, they were arrested.
	Is that true?
	Yeah, they were arrested for running a video dating service, and they decided that they would have a larger clientele, according to this woman.
	And she has photographs of herself with art.
	They decided they would have a larger clientele if they, in fact, offered the service to couples as opposed to simply individuals.
	And then the place was raided, and she claimed numerous high-power people in the local community had been using this service, and it was a big to-do.
	And so, yeah, they ended up getting arrested, and that was that.
	They ended up suing the city.
	They got something on the order, apparently, of about $50,000 as a result of that lawsuit.
	But when you hear that whole premise that that woman sets up in her interview, does any of that ring true to you?
	Do you have any knowledge of prior events, or do you have any memories of anything that would seem to indicate to you that that sounds legit?
	No, I have no knowledge of such things because, you know, like we've only had that one conversation.
	Like I said, his private life has been obscured in, you know, rumor, speculation, people creating tall tales and whatever.
	I don't know if I could actually believe the validity of this woman in the same way that Heather Wade, you know, has been speculating, insinuating.
	It's also vague.
	And it seems like, do you really want to know that absolute truth about art?
	There are some things that are best left unsaid, you know, I think.
	Because when you start to think about stuff, I don't know, your perceptions are going to change drastically, I think.
	Someone in the chat room said that I listened to all of the interview.
	I did listen to about three quarters of it, but it was a really tough listen.
	The interviewers were basically fixing their computers throughout the course of the interview.
	So it was a slightly tough listen.
	Well, Vincent, I guess I'm kind of curious, since you have your own children now, you sound like you've largely moved on.
	Do you think that you've had sort of a cathartic moment at some?
	Well, I guess that's the question.
	How did his death affect you?
	What did you think when you heard about it?
	All right.
	It went two ways.
	It's completely abstract and surreal because I feel like I'm in an emotional vacuum because so much of my physicality is removed from his physicality.
	I will confess that for the last 35 years, I've been haunted by his ghost, his living ghost.
	And then Friday the 13th came.
	It was like, and he died on Friday the 13th, which is beyond irony.
	And I felt this relief.
	It was like, it was like Pazuzu leaving my body.
	And I felt liberated.
	I felt relieved.
	And I did not feel one ounce of guilt when I found out that he had died.
	I felt like I'm finally rid of him.
	I don't have to, I don't even have to think about his physical presence anymore because he's just not there anymore.
	He's gone.
	So I can move on.
	Like, I think I will always be haunted, but not to the degree that the last 35 years have been in my life.
	I feel like when you have children, especially if you're a man, you take care of your kids.
	And that includes financially.
	And I want to know if you and your sister, I want to know if Art IV, I want to know if you guys are going to get anything out of that estate.
	My sister, Lisa, who has a lawyer friend in LA, who's like a super lawyer shark guy, within like literally within days, found out that Art had built, he had arranged trusts in place that only the people who were going to get the money were Aaron, Asia, Irene, okay, Irene, Asia, and Alexander.
	No other external children are to receive any of that cash.
	All the 10 million that is net worth is all going to go to them.
	And tell you the truth, I'm relieved about that too.
	I don't have to get sucked into that bullshit.
	You know?
	Yeah, but damn it.
	You should have some of that money.
	That's just, it's really that simple.
	You should have some of that damn money.
	There's no way around that.
	There's no technicality that can.
	I mean, people get estates get sued all the time, whether there's a will or a trust or any other mechanism someone may use in order to try and protect the inheritance.
	That's the thing.
	Irene, Irene?
	Yeah.
	She came to this country from the Philippines when she was young.
	She left probably her whole family there.
	She comes to this strange place, lives out in the middle of the desert with an old man.
	Let's face it.
	Has two children.
	And this poor girl, she's got nothing.
	He's dead, gone.
	And I think she's better served with that money.
	And then she could take it, go back to the Philippines, or she could stay here, whatever, and take care of her children.
	You know?
	Damn it.
	At least we know that the money is going someplace.
	Yeah.
	Not us.
	You're a nicer man than I am.
	Every now and then I'll run into someone that just makes me say, you know what, maybe I am a real dirtbag.
	And I just had one of those moments because if I were you, I would be scratching and clawing to get some of that money.
	And you know, like the old me 20 years ago would have been, I would have been like this kinetic energy.
	I would have just gone for it.
	I would have.
	But you know what?
	I don't really have the energy.
	I don't want to.
	Money always creates problems within families.
	Right?
	It can.
	It can solve a lot of them too.
	You get like cousins and uncles, nephews that you've never seen come out of the woodwork.
	These are stories you hear constantly when large sums of money is concerned.
	Yeah, you know what?
	She'll be fine with that money.
	What is your mom still alive?
	Yes, my mother, Satchiko, is still alive.
	You pronounce it Satchiko?
	Satchiko.
	Satchiko.
	Yeah.
	Okay, and I remember, I don't know where I saw you type this, but you had submitted a post somewhere.
	Maybe it was even on Bellgab, suggesting that after Art left your mom, he got a new girlfriend and your mom was working as a bartender somewhere.
	Tell the story.
	Okay.
	After I was born in 1965, Art begged my mom to have another child.
	My mom did not want to have another child, but I guess he broke her down and Lisa came along.
	And as soon as Lisa came along, he was out the door.
	Any reason given?
	He was, respectfully, my mom was at least two or three years older than him.
	He was basically a young pup when he married my mom.
	I think maybe seeing two children probably scared him off.
	But I think, and this is, again, going back to his pattern of behavior, I think he probably already had a girlfriend lined up on the side.
	And because he's just kind of a sociopath, he brought her, his new girlfriend, to the NCO club I think my mom was bartending on.
	I don't know if it was Kadena Air Force Base or not exactly know where it is.
	But either way, he came in with his girlfriend and flaunted her in front of my mom.
	And they'd just been barely apart because their marriage wasn't dissolved until like the early 72, 73 or something like that.
	So she was, you know, feeling the kind of burn that, I guess, scorn women go through.
	And after that, they just didn't speak to each other.
	I mean, he didn't even bother to, you know, send her money or check up on her to see if she was okay.
	And yeah, he's just, he was gone.
	No child support over those years?
	No child support.
	No, none.
	Well, you and I really have a lot in common.
	We should start a club or something.
	Yeah, we should.
	Disappointedsons.org.
	Say again?
	We should start a website or something, disappointedsons.org.
	You and I have a lot in common.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Definitely.
	Yeah, it's going to take more than two, though, I think, right?
	So what, when he left her, did he give a reason?
	Did he ever say what it was, or he just left?
	He just left.
	That's his style.
	He just leaves.
	And he's, you know, he has no clear conscience.
	He has a clear conscience.
	I'm sorry.
	And he blamed my mom's Buddhist religion that she was too busy with it, you know?
	But really, in reality, it was him.
	It was all him.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	And I think my mom was just too naive to going to pursue any legal action towards him.
	I think she, once he had walked out, she just didn't want to deal with him anymore.
	And, you know, good for her for like just letting it go.
	But yeah, she never talks about him.
	And I don't ever ask because it seems like that's something that was private between the two of them.
	I figure if she wants to tell me, she'll tell me herself.
	Yeah.
	So I can see about that.
	When Art died, there was a big stink because the Nye County Sheriff's Department publicly announced Art's death supposedly before Art's wife and Karen Jackson and everyone else involved, whoever those players are, were under the assumption they would.
	They thought that the Night County Sheriff's Department, I've read that they thought the Nye County Sheriff's Department was going to allow them to keep Art's death a secret for up to four days.
	Something on that order.
	I can't imagine why they thought that, but supposedly that's what they thought.
	And when the Nike County Sheriff's Department did in fact publicly announce his death, they went bat shit.
	They began publicly castigating the Nike County Sheriff's Department on Facebook and anywhere else they could get an audience.
	And one of the reasons they gave was family had to be contacted.
	We didn't have time to contact family, even though it's my understanding they had at least 12 hours between the death of Art and the public announcement.
	Were you or was anyone you are aware of one of those family members who needed to be contacted?
	No.
	But because I don't do media platforms, I actually got a text from my friend Peter, and he's the one that informed me that the Twitter, I guess, had announced Art Bell's death.
	But nobody officially had, like, knew.
	There was a lot of speculation still, I guess.
	But the next day, I checked all the others, and they all said the same thing that he had passed Friday the 13th.
	Can you imagine who that might have been that they were suggesting was a family member who needed to be contacted?
	Do you have any idea who that would have been?
	Artie IV.
	I don't think he, I mean, my other half-brother, Kevin, has never not really been publicly acknowledged as his other son, but he is definitely one of them.
	And I don't think they would have contacted him because I don't even think that most, I don't even think anyone knows that Kevin's alive.
	But I will go on record saying that Kevin Yanaga is my other half-brother.
	He lives in Philadelphia here, ironically enough.
	And he'd been living here for years without even my knowledge until a friend of mine said that, hey, I think there's somebody that might be related to you working at my restaurant.
	It was pure happenstance that he ended up in Philly?
	Yes, it was like pure happenstance.
	Wow.
	Yeah.
	And he's a chef here in Philly, sushi chef.
	And, you know, like, I think he had already always been haunted also by not knowing art.
	And, you know, like, I think for him, I'm sure it was a shock finding out that he had another half-brother, you know, living and breathing under his roof.
	And I was in shock, you know, when I found out that I had a brother.
	I've been trying to connect with him for the last since I found out I had a brother.
	But sometimes it's tough going, you know, because he works a lot and my schedule is always different.
	But, you know, I keep trying with Kevin, you know, because I feel a connection with him.
	And unfortunately, he I think he's alone, you know, beyond his wife and his son that he has.
	But, you know, I'm hopeful for the future between him and I. Have you spoken with him specifically about art?
	You have to?
	I would imagine so, right?
	Yeah.
	I think he's always wanted to meet him.
	But now we can talk about it.
	Do you know if he made an attempt to meet him?
	No.
	I don't think so.
	And your sister, Lisa, I know she's not here to speak for herself, but so I'll limit my questions there.
	But I would imagine she's been affected by all of this in a rather similar way to you.
	Yeah, she was so young when he left.
	And, you know, I have no memory of his face when he left.
	I guess I just don't remember it.
	I think Lisa was more haunted by the whole idea of art early on in her late teen years, her 20s.
	But after that, I think she just moved on with her life.
	And then I was the one that kind of, you know, carried that sort of torch for years later.
	That answers your question.
	Is there going to be a point where you, I mean, you've been pretty vocal about this over the years, and I'm kind of wondering if the somewhat cathartic moment of Art's death has changed you in such a way that going forward, you're really not going to be too terribly interested in talking about this subject.
	Yeah, I imagine that this subject matter will probably send into my memory, you know, more and more.
	As more years pass by and I get more and more involved with my family, I think I'll, you know, I've just moved on.
	Like, I won't really think about him as much as I used to because there are more important things in front of me than having to be obsessed with someone living or dead was never there.
	I remember in that article in Philadelphia Magazine back in 2006, it said something to the effect of your sister Lisa contacted Art and he sent her in response a copy of his autobiography, The Art of Talk.
	And inside of the cover, he wrote something to the effect of, here's the rest of the story.
	Yeah, he didn't write anything in that inscription.
	He just told Lisa to read the book.
	You know, he took the easy way out and just gave her the book and just signed with his initial, you know, his John Hancock.
	And he said, my background is French Indian, Irish, you know, like all these things, but they were all surface stuff that you could like read off of like some stat sheet.
	You know, there was no emotional warmth to that book.
	It was just like, here, here's the book, read it.
	That's it.
	And in that Philadelphia Magazine article, I didn't get the impression.
	Actually, it was Philly Weekly.
	Philly Weekly.
	I'm sorry.
	Is that even still a thing?
	Are they still doing that?
	Philly Weekly's gone.
	Oh, okay.
	It was a city paper that's told it.
	It's my recollection that in that article, there were some cuts, some quotes from Art.
	So in retrospect, yeah, of course he knew in advance because they got the quotes from him for the article.
	But I recall in those quotes, there was no contrition on his part.
	There was no accepting of blame.
	There was no, yeah, I was younger.
	And I mean, at least as I self-analyze, I can think back to some of the horrible things I did in younger years.
	And I can look back on those things and say, oh, God, I really sucked.
	But there was none of that.
	You would think that there would have been at least some acknowledgement of perhaps bad choices having been made.
	No regret, actually.
	He had no regrets.
	He was just acting like this perfectionary kind of person who wanted me to kill the story so he could go on with his life.
	You know, and I think it was just at that right moment.
	It was the perfect time for that story to go on.
	And that first story was actually like the moment where I started feeling like I could start healing, you know, because that story was like the culmination of my whole life and what it was leading up to.
	And I wanted everybody to know that I was, you know, sexually abused by, you know, a family member.
	That really screwed me up for a lot of years.
	That, yes, I grew up like, you know, obsessed with UFOs and, you know, which I didn't even know that I was sharing the same kind of, you know, DNA interest kind of thing.
	That a person like me can get help.
	You know, I was in therapy for 10 years and I'm still on off in therapy and it's really opened my eyes.
	Getting married and having children, that in itself changed my whole life, my whole perspective.
	And it, you know, it wanted to send a message to people that they can survive.
	You don't have to be a victim anymore.
	Even though that article, I mean, the article says that, you know, like art doesn't even try to even ever apologize.
	And you know what?
	That's just him.
	And I can't force somebody to apologize if, you know, if they don't want to.
	And he was just so clueless, it didn't matter.
	And yeah.
	When I think back on my biological father, who was really a bag of dirt, I say to myself, you know what, in retrospect, it was probably much better that he wasn't in my life because I feel like I absolutely would have turned out to be a much different person had he been.
	Do you feel the same way?
	Or do you feel like I really wish he had been there?
	Yeah, well, I had romantic illusions about that stuff when I was younger.
	But over the years, you get a little bit harder and then you get more hard and just to the point where you're so jaded, I guess, yeah, I guess it would have been great, but never at any given moment did he ever get off his ass and go and look for me or Lisa or any of my other siblings, you know?
	That's just, that speaks volumes about who he is as a person and who I'm not as a person.
	Do you want to take some calls?
	Sure.
	Okay.
	If you don't want to, we don't have to.
	No, no, this is a whole new experience.
	That's all right.
	If you want to call in and ask Vincent, how do you pronounce your last name?
	Is it Pontius?
	Pontius, yeah.
	Pontius, if you want to call him my stepfather.
	Okay, well, I figured as much.
	If you want to call in and ask Vincent a question, you can do so.
	The number is 573-837-4948.
	That is 573-837-4948.
	You said you had some interest in UFOs, and you didn't even know that that commonality between your biological father and you existed.
	When you found out all about art and what he was doing, and you realized that commonality that existed in you, what went through your mind?
	That must have been a pretty interesting moment.
	Yeah, that the DNA apple doesn't fall far from the tree, as far as that's concerned.
	Yep.
	Did you ever have any experiences?
	I guess I did.
	One time when I was living in Harrisburg, it wasn't a UFO experience.
	It was like a paranormal experience.
	But I don't know if it was just my girlfriend at the time just, you know, freaking out because she was in a different house.
	But she claims that somebody tapped her on the shoulder while she was taking a shower.
	And she was upstairs.
	I was downstairs cooking.
	And she yelled at my name.
	She thought that I was in the room with her.
	And I touched her on the shoulder to scare her.
	But when she looked behind her, there was nothing there in the stall.
	So it was an old house, you know, that I lived in.
	So that's a, if that's it, you guys have to say anything about it, you know.
	I was on the beach, and I think I was like eight or nine.
	I saw like a light in the sky, and it was moving in a way that doesn't move like a jet or a helicopter, and it just like shot into the air 30 seconds later.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Who knows what I saw?
	Yeah.
	I really get a little bit annoyed when people see something and they tell you what they saw.
	I assign a little more credibility to things when people say, who knows what I saw?
	That makes a lot more sense to me.
	Hi, you're on the air with Vincent.
	Hi, Vincent.
	Hello.
	I was just curious.
	First of all, I think you should do a podcast.
	I think you'd be brilliant.
	Your voice is amazing.
	But also, I wondered if you ever thought of doing like an ancestry DNA test to see if there's even more brothers and sisters out there you didn't know about.
	That's a good question.
	That's a lot of work because a lot of my Japanese relatives live in Okinawa and I haven't seen them, oh, God, since the year 2000.
	And because there's a language barrier, I would have to use my mom as sort of a mediator, you know, and all that.
	Because I think my family tree stretches back like very, very far in history, like especially on the Japanese side, according to my mom.
	I'd be a little bit scared.
	I'd be a little bit scared to use one of those services now.
	Did you hear about how they captured the Golden State?
	I mean, I'm glad they got a serial killer off the streets in California, but that is exactly how they captured the Golden State killer was by going through the databases in these who is your ancestry comprised of services.
	And they were able to extract from that who his family members were.
	And then from there, it was all just a matter of time.
	Isn't that something?
	You would think that.
	I'm sorry.
	Go ahead.
	I don't know if I would, I think I'm pretty satisfied with my family tree.
	It's a very limited tree, but it's the one I can manage.
	And I don't want to have to think about other things.
	I just want to, right now, it's more important to think about my family and especially my 10-year-old girl.
	What do your kids think of all of this?
	Or have you had much communication with them about this subject?
	I mean, Mary has asked about art.
	He's sort of a mysterious person, but she doesn't really ask those questions anymore.
	I think it was something she used to ask when she was like three, four, and five, you know?
	Yeah.
	And I've talked to Mary about like not having a dad.
	And she's pretty sensitive to it, you know.
	And I think her knowing that it's brought us closer.
	I'll give you an example.
	When she was three and four, I used to take her around town in Philly in this Radio Flyer wagon.
	And because she had remembered when I worked in the office at Philly magazine, she remembered that I used to have rubber bands around my wrist.
	So she would always be looking for rubber bands on the ground.
	And whenever she found a rubber band, she would always hand it to me.
	And to this day, whenever I see a rubber band, it always, for me, it represents like, you know, security.
	And the other aspect is like, because she knew that I grew up really, really poor, wherever we go to a restaurant, where we, if we're eating like dinner, lunch, breakfast, she sometimes would just like look over at me and give me the last piece of her meal.
	Just because she remembered that I had grown up poor.
	See, to me, that's all I need.
	I thought you were going to tell me that you steal the sweet and low.
	I completed that in my head myself before you said it.
	Anyway, all right.
	So if you want to be on the show, the number to call 573-837-4948, 573-837-4948.
	Vincent, are you a Bellgab user?
	Do you have an account over there?
	No, but I did join today, actually, because I'm very curious as to what people are saying.
	I mean, I never used to, but now I want to see what people are saying.
	Well, you know, I should have probably told you this because if you go to ufoship.com forward slash chat, there's a chat room with probably, I'll bet you there's over 100 people in that chat all talking in real time about what it is we're discussing here.
	However, when this recording gets posted in podcast form at ufoship.com, you'll be able to read the chat transcript if you'd like.
	It's pretty all-encompassing.
	We don't edit anything out of it, so you'll see the good with the bad, but that's the world we live in.
	That's reality.
	No, I'm fine with that.
	So I don't really think there's a whole lot else to talk about, really.
	I mean, you've moved on with your life.
	You are a good dad.
	At least the fact that you're even concerned with whether or not you're a good dad seems to me to indicate that you are.
	And you've moved on.
	I just would like to encourage you to consider speaking to maybe another lawyer.
	I know you said the money isn't of the utmost importance to you.
	I get that.
	But damn it, I really, just for me, you know, I just want you to have some of that money.
	That's all I'm trying to tell you.
	We have another caller.
	Let's go ahead and take this call.
	Hi, Sheffist, you're on the air.
	Hi.
	Yeah, hey, what's going on?
	Hey, Vincent, really enjoying the interview tonight.
	It seems that after all of the hardship and pain in your life, you're on a path of personal and spiritual discovery.
	What do you think if you can focus and identify the biggest positive influence that came out of all this negativity and all of the Other than pure shit you were put through as a kid in your life because of Art Bell, what was the one thing you can take away and say, you know what, this is what has made a complete difference in my life?
	I think that's actually pretty easy now to explain.
	Having known, having known things about art and his behavior, and certainly I didn't know this until, you know, he, you know, started doing radio and there was more information out there.
	And I still, I just, you know, when I started learning about art's like sort of awful behavior, I focused on when I started going into therapy, I focused on the idea that I have to break this awful chain, this awful cycle that I've built around my life for so long.
	And I thought that I couldn't do it because over the years I've tried and tried and tried, but I realized that I haven't tried hard enough.
	So when I finally got my butt in therapy, I went through some like that first eight months of intense bleeding, like, you know, excising all this like bile and just shit that was inside me.
	After I was able to do that, after a year, my whole life changed when like I got married and I had Mary, who was like, she was like such a like a blessing, you know, because she was born on December 23rd and she went home on Christmas Eve, December 22nd.
	I'm sorry, December 22nd and went home Christmas Eve.
	And I'm sorry.
	The one thing that's changed is having a family has changed my whole perspective.
	The positive, like all the positive and things I've taken away from having a family of my own has helped to rescind, recede all the pain to the sides more and more instead of it just kind of collapsing in itself in my life.
	So I would say that my family was the connecting tissue that kind of made me feel like a person.
	Did you ever meet Ramona?
	No.
	But I understand that Art was married to her the longest, 13 years.
	Yeah, something like that.
	What were your thoughts when she died and three months later he was getting married to somebody from the Philippines?
	There goes Art again.
	That's what I was saying.
	Yeah.
	A lot of people.
	I guess it didn't surprise me.
	Not really.
	Again, you do see like a pattern behavior, correct?
	You see that right now, right?
	Sure.
	Like the way he's behaved with women.
	I wonder his final marriage, though.
	Actually, that with Ramona, we've got what?
	I think they were actually married for 15.
	I could be wrong, but that's what I've seen.
	That's the number I've seen bandied about the most frequently.
	And then Irene for 12.
	And I'm kind of wondering, there seems to have been a lot of continuity relationship-wise in the final years of his life.
	I'm wondering if he had some sort of an epiphany or a switch flipped and he changed a little bit.
	Did you ever think about that?
	No.
	Sorry.
	I think he was an unrepentant sociopath.
	I'm sorry.
	He's, I'm trying not to be so biased about it.
	Well, how can you not?
	Yeah, it is what it is.
	Hi, you're on the air with Vincent.
	I am.
	You are.
	Hey, buddy.
	Hi.
	Great.
	Hey, this is Dave Schrader, the new host of Midnight in the Desert.
	Hey, bud.
	I wanted to call in.
	Vincent, I've enjoyed hearing your heartfelt opening up to the audience tonight.
	And I wanted to thank you for coming on.
	I know this couldn't have been easy to do.
	And listening to your passion and interests, I just want you to know that going forward, if you're ever interested in joining us on Midnight in the Desert on Friday or something during the week to do movies and talk as a fellow movie nerd and fan of radio, I'd be happy to have you join us and be a part of the show in any way that we can come together on.
	Boom!
	Thank you, David.
	I would listening to you, it's interesting.
	You know, as you guys are chatting about this, you know, I really respect what you've said.
	I have a very similar vein with you.
	I've never known my biological father and grew up leading a totally different life and making sure that I didn't follow into the same footsteps.
	And now, as the father of, you know, my, you know, 11 total children between my wife and I, I try to do my best to make sure that I'm active with my children and that they're a big part of my life and that they would never be, you know, never left to feel that they were unloved or unwanted.
	And I really respect because you had two paths to go down.
	And I know people that have been in your position that take the same route.
	And it's fantastic to hear you break that chain and make a difference than what your father did.
	So Vincent, congratulations for being a strong man and doing the right thing in your life.
	And like I said, you have an open door to be a part of our show on Midnight in the Desert whenever you'd like to join us.
	Thanks, David.
	Thank you.
	Thanks, Dave.
	I would love to see eventually at some point, Vincent, you get a little podcast going.
	And then it's not going to start out little, though.
	I can assure you.
	You're going to have a solid listener base right out of the gate.
	You're going to get plenty of promotion.
	And I think it would be really cool if at some point going down the road, you ended up on that same podcast network with Dave Schrader doing Midnight in the Desert.
	You have a regular show on there that airs at some point during the week.
	I think that would really be awesome because that is the true Art Bell legacy, as far as I'm concerned.
	To hear you on there doing a show, I think would just be the capper to something really great.
	Definitely have to really think about it because, you know, I love movies, but I also like other things like music.
	I collect a lot of, you know, vinyl, like comic books, a lot of comic books.
	So those are things that I think I like to talk about in my podcast.
	I think that's generally that seems to be like we are full-on nerd culture now.
	It's cool to be in nerd, and I like that a lot.
	What are you going to do when the mood shifts, though, and it's no longer cool to be a nerd?
	You can start doing your podcast in a leather jacket or something.
	I'll be an old man.
	I'm 52 now.
	Wow, I didn't realize you were that old.
	I thought you were in your early 40s.
	I guess I, well, no, I'm doing the math, 65.
	Good grief.
	I'm 38.
	Okay.
	Well, I'm going to go ahead and say thank you for coming on this show.
	It really was nice to talk to you.
	You and I have been in communication for so many years via email and other methods of communication, but we never, and we talked about doing this a long time ago, but maybe, maybe the reason it never happened, I never said I didn't want to do it.
	It just kind of never happened.
	And maybe part of the reason it never happened was because, frankly, I was a little bit scared of getting sued, to be totally honest with you.
	Even in the course of running Bellgab, Art threatened to sue me at least two times that I can remember.
	I hear he was a bad sport.
	He really, in some ways, was.
	But on the other hand, I can kind of understand.
	You show up to this forum that's named Bell Gab.
	You assume it to be comprised mostly, almost entirely, of people who are sycophants and going to just soak up whatever it is that you're excreting.
	And then it turns out that they're kind of not.
	And that probably was on some levels a bit of a shock to him.
	And so I guess that's why this never happened for all of those years.
	That's why this never happened, I think.
	Now that I actually consciously give it some consideration, I was afraid of getting sued, frankly.
	And it's, I'm sorry, I think I was too angry.
	You know, like a lot of my, I was still like kind of trying to put it, you know, more and more past, but I was still dealing with a lot of the anger issues.
	So I think maybe it was a misconnection then in 2007, but I'm glad that, you know, 11 years later, we were connecting again.
	I'm, you know, a little bit older, a little bit more wiser, and much happier.
	And I'm sure you've changed, you know, like last 11 years.
	So today, today, right now was the perfect time.
	I did sense a more pronounced tinge of anger to your comments on this situation in the past than I do now.
	It definitely is a noticeable difference.
	Well, Vincent, I wish you all the best.
	You're, I don't know, you sized someone up through text.
	I'd never heard your voice or spoken to you.
	You're different than I expected.
	You're, I don't know.
	There's no way to say this without it sounding mean, but you're far more articulate than I expected.
	But I can't say that without it sounding like I'm saying you sound like a rube when you type, because that's not what I'm saying.
	It's just you get an impression of someone and what you expect.
	And I could totally see you doing radio.
	I could totally see you doing a podcast, something.
	And it's so easy to set up these days.
	And you sound great.
	You sound like a great human being in addition to it all.
	I'm glad that the experiences of your past haven't ultimately acted as an anvil around your ankle and you've gotten past a lot of it.
	And in fact, I think in some ways it's given you a path toward being a better person.
	And your kids are ultimately going to be the reward there as they thank you later in life.
	So thanks for coming on.
	I'm glad you're doing well.
	Keep in touch with me.
	And I'll be more than happy to help you out with any technical aspects of getting a podcast going, getting some sort of a broadcasting operation going.
	I ultimately hope to hear you broadcasting on the same stream that we hear Dave Schrader on, who just called into the show.
	Hold on, we've got one more call.
	Let's go ahead and take it.
	Hi, you're on the air.
	Hello.
	Hey, you're on the air.
	Go ahead, buddy.
	Hi.
	Oh, hey.
	This is Cam.
	Chameleon from the chat.
	What's going on?
	I was just calling.
	Well, actually, I don't even know if I can up what Dave said earlier because I was going to call and say that, yeah, you should definitely reach out to somebody over there.
	Even if the podcast, like you said, was going to be about movies or comic books or a whole range of stuff, it would be cool to kind of get into that because, like the other people in the chat said, you definitely got a voice for it.
	So, and plus, it sounds like you got a grip on this whole situation, whereas certain people couldn't even address what's been going on without losing their emotional grip on the radio.
	I'm sure some people remember, you know, that cast.
	But, yeah, I just want to call up and lend my support.
	You're so diplomatic.
	Really good interview.
	Oh, well, it's just hard because, you know, I didn't even expect this guest.
	I was expecting someone else.
	Who did you expect?
	I thought Schrader was going to become a show.
	Well, he was on the show.
	You just heard him.
	I mean, what do you want?
	Surprise.
	That's true.
	That's true.
	But yeah, man, I just wanted to say I appreciate you giving us some insight and details about art and stuff like that.
	And even if some of them look at it, you know, paint them as kind of more of a negative light in some people's heads.
	It's definitely good to know what we know about them.
	So I just wanted to say thanks for that.
	All right, man.
	See you guys later.
	See you, buddy.
	Thanks for calling in.
	It's Chameleon808.
	All right, Vincent, I guess that'll do it.
	Just keep in touch and we'll talk and we'll make things happen.
	How about that?
	Cool, y'all.
	All right, buddy.
	Take care.
	That's Vincent Bontius.
	Vincent Pontius.
	See, I would normally want to pronounce that Pontius, but he pronounces it Pontius.
	And there's a bit more emphasis there than my Midwestern tongue is prepared to deal with.
	This is the GabCast.
	If you want to call in, it'd be nice to have you on.
	The number is 573-837-4948.
	573-837-4948.
	We could take a few calls here and just see what people want to talk about.
	What's up, buddy?
	Go ahead.
	You're on the air.
	Not anymore.
	Okay.
	I think that perhaps they got a bit confused.
	I could hear myself in the back.
	Turn down your device.
	573-837-4948.
	Is Heather going to, in fact, be on the air on the 28th?
	Is that in fact true?
	Because it's been the impression I've been given.
	And the primary reason it seems, at least the reason that's publicly being given, is because they don't have a dump button in order to be able to excise profanity or other questionable content from the show.
	The irony is that the Gabcast, for the first time ever, has a dump button.
	Hi, you're on the air.
	Hello.
	Is this me?
	It's you.
	Hey, buddy.
	Hey, this is Tricky D from Bell Gab.
	How are y'all doing tonight?
	Oh, we're great.
	And I don't think you and I have ever talked.
	Have you ever called into one of these Bell Gab related podcasts?
	I have never called in before.
	I've just kind of started participating in the forum recently.
	I was a lurker for many years.
	But I tell you, this was a great interview with Vincent.
	And in light of the other YouTube video there with Marsha, my God.
	Who was this man that I've spent 20 years listening to?
	It's just kind of shocking.
	Well, I said to somebody the other day, I really appreciate Art's talent as a radio broadcaster.
	Was one in a billion.
	There won't be another.
	There's just nobody could touch him in terms of what he did.
	But at the same time, that doesn't mean that that's necessarily an assessment of the man.
	I can speak about a guy who runs a construction company, and I can say I really like the way that guy runs his company, but it doesn't necessarily mean that I'm assessing him as a human being.
	And some might even ask, why are you even doing this show?
	Well, the way this actually happened tonight was someone sent me a message and said that Vincent's on Facebook.
	And I said, well, I'm not on Facebook anymore.
	If you want, you could send him a message and ask him if he'd be interested in doing the podcast.
	So this person did.
	Vincent contacted me at my email address.
	And that's how the whole thing happened.
	But really, I don't know how I would answer that question, that question if someone is going to ask me why we did this show tonight, other than to say it's a topic of interest.
	That's really all I could say to that.
	I mean, what's interesting about art when, you know, back in the 90s, when he didn't have a lot of guests back in those early days, if you remember, he had open lines a lot, and he killed a lot of airtime just talking about his life, you know, talking about the GeoMetro and Ramona and the cats and falling off the deck and gluing his fingers to something with super glue.
	You just felt like you were in that double wide out in the desert with him at night sometimes.
	And so he was so, he projected this image into our head, either of the mind, as they say.
	And it's just kind of not, it was, it's like he was, wow, what an actor.
	You know what I mean?
	He was an amazing, he was an actor.
	Well, I don't really necessarily hold that against him because on the one hand, you do feel like you develop this bond to someone that you're listening to on the radio or someone whose content you're consuming on a remote basis.
	You do start to feel like you have some sort of a familial almost connection to that person.
	And so I can see why people would react to the things that have come out over the course of the last few weeks in the way that you just described.
	But at the same time, nothing about it really surprises me or shocks me because I don't know why, but as I listened to Art all of those years, I loved what he did on the radio, but he never struck me as somebody that I would want to meet.
	And even in the early days of Bell Gab, I used to be asked from time to time by people, since I had started the forum, I guess maybe it was a natural question for people to ask me, would you like to meet Art Bell?
	And I would always invariably answer no, because I just am pretty convinced that he and I wouldn't necessarily get along too terribly well.
	I wasn't sure that he was really someone that I would have a good go associating with.
	And so even back in the old days when I would listen to the radio show, I always steered clear of making that assessment of the man.
	I assessed what I heard on the radio, but I think because I didn't assess the man, pardon me, I just assessed the show and the performance.
	As bad things were learned, I wasn't surprised by them, and I wasn't off-put by them perhaps as much as some people were.
	Even back in 2006, the old UFO ship.com was originally purely an Art Bell fan site.
	I mean, I was such a douche.
	If you scroll down to the bottom of the webpage, it actually had the words, Art Bella's God at the bottom of the screen.
	But even so, when that Philly Weekly article about Art and Vincent and the other children came out, I posted that article in its entirety on the website.
	And I wasn't emotionally harmed in any way by doing so because I hadn't made that assessment of the man.
	I simply appreciated what he did on the radio.
	Hi, you're on the, I was going to say you're on the air, but we don't really have air.
	You're on the podcast, if you will.
	Hello.
	Hello, MT.
	This is White Carl.
	Hey, bud.
	Yeah, the Art led a lot of, we're in some private chat groups, and there's a lot of people who really got really emotionally involved with art.
	You know, I goof around and calling the lonely cat ladies at night, but he let a lot of people down.
	I mean, they looked up to him, and he was their late-night contact.
	And it's pretty devastating.
	When you say he let a lot of people down, are you referring to the departures from his shows?
	Yeah, well, is it Marcia?
	Oh, personally.
	Yeah, no, I mean, when I'm saying he's let a lot of people down, I'm saying his listeners, you know, many people connected with art at night on an emotional level, and they're finding out all these various things that are totally different than what they pictured him as.
	So his second thought is if you picked up on the video from the two guys in Virginia and yeah, we talked about that during the interview.
	Right.
	But that whole Vietnam plane bringing the children over here, if that was not true or even worse, she seemed to suggest she thinks it's not.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I know.
	I mean, that's pretty devastating to make up a story like that.
	You know, it would be nice to know that it was true, but it would be to live your life and make up a story of that impact so many people.
	I mean, there is no adjective or whatever to describe doing something like that.
	Well, it seems like it would be something.
	It seems like it would be something that could easily be looked up.
	I mean, wouldn't something, an event of that magnitude, be something that is easily accessible through printed media from the time?
	I would think so, but she said she looked it up and she can't, it happened two or three years before she connected with art.
	You know, I was connecting the dots.
	Where was Art's career two or three years before that?
	I think it was he talked about doing it when he was up in maybe Alaska.
	So I don't know.
	But yeah, I would think you could look it up pretty easy, trying to prove, you know, there's got to be some record of it if he did it.
	So anyway, I'm sure there's some clever people on Bellgab that can follow up with that.
	But that is really a big point for, again, some of the people that I chat with that they can understand the other stuff, but to make up that kind of story, honestly, I would be really shocked if that were made up.
	That would shock me.
	I would be too.
	That would shock me, too.
	It really would.
	That's really a dirty pool to make it up.
	To make up that you rescued children.
	It would be.
	But it would be it would also be nice to know that if he did do it, I mean, it'd be a very redeeming thing, you know, a lot of people's minds that, hey, this guy did this, but man, he saved a lot of children.
	That would be pretty cool.
	So it goes both ways on that one.
	Yeah.
	Anyway, good show.
	It was very interesting to it's kind of depressing, though, isn't it?
	It is on so many levels.
	But how Vincent and you take care of your family, the situation.
	I always wondered how that worked.
	I come from a pretty normal family, two people.
	And I always thought that, geez, if you didn't have one, if you didn't have a father or something, it would really be special to you to have a family.
	So it's really nice to hear that you guys are carrying it forward.
	Well, believe me, I've got my own problems.
	I'm not pristine by any stretch.
	But I think that in my case, the saving grace was my stepdad that my mom married when I was five, who stepped in and treated me like his own son, never once treated me as if I were not biologically his.
	Even when he and my mom had children, he still treated me like I was his own son.
	But had that not happened, I think that, I don't know, the path forward for me could have been quite different.
	I think that children without dads, particularly girls without dads, I'll say it that way.
	I think girls without dads are harmed far more than girls without moms.
	I think girls particularly need a dad, but at the same time, because it has a direct and inextricable link to the choices they make in men later in life, I think women who don't have a proper father in their lives wind up being used and abused by men.
	I mean, I will tell you that I had a lot of relationships with women over the years that I did not deserve to have.
	Women who were way out of my league, and it was always, invariably, every time.
	Because of bad fathering.
	And so, yeah, bad fathering is what enabled me to have a lot of fun times in my younger days.
	And so you fathers out there, remember that.
	If you don't want your daughter to wind up on a date with some dirtbag like me that she shouldn't be on one with, make sure that she knows what your telephone number is.
	I'll put it that way.
	And boys need a father too.
	We all know the reasons why we all see what happens when boys are raised by women.
	It doesn't work out too well.
	But I am, I guess, having commented on how depressing some of this was tonight, there is that silver lining of Vincent having gotten his life on track and having exercised some of the demons that had plagued him over the years and having become a good father.
	It sounds like he's a good father.
	And I do believe that if you simply ask yourself if you're a good father, that means you're consciously interested in the subject.
	And that is a big chunk of it.
	Were you a good father, White Crow?
	Do you have children?
	No, I have four children.
	You do have children because you told me about your daughter once.
	I have three lovely daughters.
	Were you a bad father?
	Good father?
	How would you assess yourself?
	Excellent father.
	Well, you have to say that because if you don't, 17 minutes later, there will be a thread on Belgab.
	White Crow was a bad father.
	Disgust.
	You've got to say that.
	We do good.
	We devoted our lives to our children and tried to do all the right things for them.
	So I'm not overly caring them, not be friends with them.
	Be the disciplinarium when it's needed.
	Okay.
	Which is important.
	Well, do you have anything else?
	Well, you enjoy your kids, and I'm sure you're going to be a great father.
	That's about it for me.
	Okay, good show tonight.
	Thank you.
	Okay.
	Thanks, bud.
	I'll do my best.
	You know, that is a seminal moment in Gabcast history.
	White Crow is not hung up upon.
	He completed a call, and it was done in a traditional manner with a goodbye at the end.
	That just does not typically happen here.
	If you want to call in, be on the show.
	We can BS about whatever.
	The phone number is 573-837-4948-573-837-4948.
	I think that it's really interesting to see what's happened with this LMN network and the fact that Heather has wound up there.
	I think that mentally, maybe she's just been in a panic since everything imploded with Keith.
	Although perhaps maybe she wanted it to implode because why pay the middleman when you can keep all the money yourself?
	That may have been a part of her thought process.
	I just can't know.
	But I do find it interesting that she's wound up on this LMN network and they've not been able to keep the show on the air.
	They've not been able to take calls.
	They've not been able to do this or that.
	It just makes total sense to me that had she simply opened up heatherwade.com, put a listen link at the top, and you can do this with WordPress in the span of about 15 minutes.
	Go out, buy a Shoutcast hosting account.
	This stuff is not difficult.
	I can assure you, it's not that difficult.
	If you saw the simplicity of my setup here, I can take calls.
	I can be heard by to my now.
	Now, the Shoutcast account that you're listening to me on is not actually my account.
	So I don't actually even know what the listener cap is.
	But for something around the neighborhood of about 25 or 30 bucks a month, you can get a Shoutcast account where the listener count is effectively unlimited.
	Whenever the account peaks out, it simply rolls over and creates another thousand listener slots.
	And to think that none of those preparations were made prior to her arrival and presentation on this LMN network.
	Yeah, I know that's not really the name.
	That's just what I call it.
	It boggles my mind.
	I can't imagine how that was allowed to happen.
	And that's why I think that after things imploded between she and Keith Rowland, there must have been some level of panic that ensued.
	And she just, I got to get on somewhere.
	I got to get on somewhere.
	First, it was this Cajun guy.
	And you all heard that interview that she did with him, which has by many people been dubbed a CryFest.
	And then she wound up on this LMN network.
	They've done two shows and I think two or three repeats of those two shows.
	So that's really a thunderous return.
	I don't, I can't, that's embarrassing to me.
	I mean, talk about losing face.
	Hi, you're on the Gabcast.
	Hello.
	Hey, MV, it's CBS.
	You know, I was listening to an old podcast that the FMV podcast from years ago.
	Yeah.
	But you guys called it podcast not included, but you really were a great part of that show.
	I like your presence.
	Sometimes I think you maybe talk about your lesbianism a little bit too much, but otherwise, on the whole, I really, I'm sorry to have used that term.
	Otherwise, I, generally speaking, really like your presence in a podcast.
	I think it's kind of silly you're not doing it anymore.
	Well, thanks, MV.
	And yeah, my lesbianism is a little played out.
	I want to start doing it again.
	I just have to find the right way to do it.
	You know what I mean?
	Actually, somebody contacted me about doing something, but I don't know if it's solid yet, so I can't really say anything.
	So we'll see.
	I miss doing it, though.
	Like, when I heard myself on the stream earlier, I'm like, it's weird to hear yourself, but I'm like, man, I had fun doing it.
	But, you know, you know how that all demise?
	I happened to speak ill against Heather and Art, and I got told basically to shut the fuck up.
	So that is something, isn't it?
	When you hear that, when you hear that, that's when you say to yourself as a listener, boy, these cats have chemistry.
	Well, it was unexpected and came out of nowhere because as everyone on the board knows, I speak my mind.
	So it's not like people didn't know.
	Do you know what I mean?
	Like it's not like they didn't know how I felt about it.
	It's just all of a sudden it was like, wham.
	But there were so many people, seriously, that were off Art's ass and gave a shit what he thought.
	And I'm just not that person.
	So like that was causing strife.
	So anyway, that's not what I said.
	Don't you find it ironic that Heather is off the air because she doesn't have a dump button, but this little podcast, the Gabcast, as she referred to it, a little podcast, we do in fact have a dump button now.
	Isn't that something?
	I think we should test it out.
	So I want you to drop the C-bomb, and then I'm going to dump out of it, and we'll see if the listening audience happened to hear it, okay?
	Are you ready?
	Yeah, anytime.
	All right, Kyle.
	Okay, now I have dumped that, and we'll see.
	What's chat say?
	I'm not reading chat because I'm actually talking to you.
	I'm not paying attention to chat.
	What do they say?
	I'm just reading the chat here.
	The problem with it, though, is because it has to incorporate a delay in order to perform the dump, it really sets me back when I see from seeing the reactions to things that are said in real time on the show.
	It adds a pretty significant delay there, so I have to wait quite some time.
	We'll wait and see what the reactions in the chat thread are.
	What was it that brought you to the show?
	Oh, just in general, I'm talking a while.
	I want to tell you I love your parodies, and I've been working on lyrics here and there, and they're great.
	And by the way, Cat Smile just said I'm up good Dave's ass.
	No, I just like him.
	If reckon somebody's wrong.
	Yeah, if leckin' somebody's wrong, oh well.
	I don't give a shit.
	I've never given a shit on this board in six years.
	I mean, I say what I say.
	You rebel.
	If I like somebody, I like them.
	I am a rebel, no.
	I mean, I think maybe it's just pissing people off that I'm going with the flow that way, but I can't hate on him.
	I mean, what do I have bad to say about him?
	He seems entirely professional, and I think it's a it's it's it's a significant improvement for the situation there in that operation that Keith Rowland's trying to run.
	I mean, if Keith Rowland is trying to make some money with what he's doing there, he has significantly improved his position.
	And by the way, the lyric in Jugsaw's NI, now Keith can breathe a sigh, that's not incidental.
	I don't think Keith was exactly crying in his, what is it, crying in his beer?
	Is that the term?
	When he found out that Heather was no longer going to be on board and that he was, in fact, going to be employing the services of somebody else.
	I don't think that was too upsetting for him.
	No, I don't think so either.
	I don't think he ever wanted her in there, but you know, that's me speculating.
	I have no proof to that.
	I know that there were hangers on still that still thought they were getting a shot with art that weren't part of that group.
	I mean, there's just so much weirdness that went on.
	And like, the whole way Heather reacted to everything was weird.
	Like, everything about the situation is fucked.
	You should have dumped that.
	I'm sorry.
	No, I'm not dumping profanity.
	I just, I'm typically just going to dump things that might get me sued or something like that.
	You can curse.
	No, we're not dumping profanity.
	We're just trying to prevent my assets from being seized.
	That's all.
	It's no more complex than that.
	Damn it.
	There was one more thing I was going to ask you, and it totally went out of my head.
	Whatever it isn't much.
	Oh, oh, Bart L. Are you on board with the Bart L thing?
	Bart L Legacy.
	Am I on board?
	There's a link to it in the main menu at Bellgab.
	And furthermore, I probably have been retweeting 75% of everything he says on Twitter through the Bellgab Twitter account.
	Oh, I'm on board.
	He's great.
	He's better and he's not even doing the show.
	Like, I follow him and he's doing nothing but parody.
	I mean, I would, first of all, I wouldn't follow Heather anyway.
	I can't get past the fake crying.
	You were in chat with us on YouTube.
	You know what happened.
	So, I mean, that first interview, I'm like, man, if I didn't already not like you, this is not helping.
	Yeah.
	If I were someone who just happened upon that broadcast without any knowledge of Heather Wade or this whole Art Bell scene, and I heard that when she was on with Cajun Joe, some people are calling him baby Joey.
	I don't know why.
	I think he's a full-grown man, but I prefer to call him.
	I think Cajun Joe is a little bit less pejorative, perhaps.
	But if I had heard that without having any knowledge of this whole scene, no pre-existing awareness of Heather Wade, I'm not sure.
	Holy hell, how I would have reacted to that.
	But let's just say you wouldn't have been getting a recurring PayPal subscription from me.
	We'll put it that way.
	It was just such a cluster.
	And like the beginning of that with the double streams, oh my God, I thought I was going to die.
	I thought that's how I was going out.
	I'm like, this is how I'm going to die.
	I'm going to die.
	It's going to be Bell Gab related.
	It's going to be great.
	Some are also calling him Joe Meth.
	Yeah, I think due to the speed of his voice that evening.
	And man, he got thrown to the side quickly, didn't he?
	I really want to know what the story is behind that.
	And supposedly, he was going to come out and say exactly what the story was.
	And then when he finally did the show on which he was going to spill the beans, he waited until it's my understanding.
	I didn't listen, but he waited until just damn near the end of the show and gave about eight seconds of very time.
	I can't talk about that because the problem is I'm just not going to talk about that because, you know, things are up in the air.
	And if I do so, it's going to be a big problem for me.
	So I'm just going to leave it on the side.
	I'm just going to leave that a will.
	I'm going to leave it alone.
	And y'all just enjoy the show.
	We're going to talk about goblins and such right here.
	Now, Heather ain't going to be on the show, though.
	I can tell you that right now.
	It was.
	That's my understanding of how it went.
	Yeah, and I read the same thing.
	I didn't listen.
	I've listened here and listener blue balls, as they say.
	Yeah, terrible.
	So I listened to the Marsha thing, finally relented the other day, and I'm like, holy shit, that was great.
	But I was on the board the other night when all this stuff with Vera happened, and it was great.
	Like, there were at least 15 of us talking about it, going, how drunk is he?
	What is he drinking?
	Like, it was one of those things.
	It was fun.
	I wonder.
	And Mr. I never had a Twitter account.
	He's so full of shit.
	That Vera guy really, really hates me.
	And I don't even know why.
	I mean, like, he came in to Bell Gab, I think maybe a month ago, and it was like a drive-by posting.
	He logged into his account, and he said something like, Michael, this mad because the Art Bell people wanted my podcast on there, not his, but I told Art Bell to go fuck himself.
	That's why Michael hates me.
	Post.
	And then he never said another word.
	And I don't understand it.
	I've never had an interaction with that guy.
	I've never directly communicated to him in any way.
	I've probably commented on his Verbal approach to doing a show.
	I've probably commented on that, but I don't really understand it.
	Although someone did tweet to me from an account on Twitter today purporting to be Michael Vera, and then I went and looked at the number of subscribers.
	It only had one subscriber or follower, rather, maybe two.
	So I don't even know if that was really him.
	But the guy is.
	Yeah, I don't, I don't.
	Yeah.
	I think he's kind of, he might be kind of paranoid, like anyone who is just kind of also doing this, sort of.
	I'm not even doing what he's doing.
	I probably put 2% of the effort into all of this that he does.
	But maybe he just has a natural inclination to feel that way toward people who also are podcasting, I guess.
	I don't know.
	Hi, you're on the air.
	Hello.
	Hello.
	Is PBS off the air?
	Yeah, she's gone.
	I hung up on her.
	All right.
	That's pretty much why I was calling because I got sick of listening to that little boy.
	Anyways, I don't know.
	This all is a big old shit show.
	I've kind of stepped away from Midnight in the Desert until poor Art died.
	And to see what happened, I think we all kind of come to the same conclusion about her, him, and Heather.
	But I think it's also pretty easy for, and it's kind of weird that all this stuff is coming out now that art's gone.
	And I think it's a little too easy to pick on somebody who can't really, you know, speak back or fight back for himself.
	So I kind of have a feelings.
	I'm not at all surprised to hear that point of view.
	I mean, I think that's a natural reaction to have to a lot of the stuff that's coming out, particularly that woman who supposedly dated Art for five years.
	Some of the things that she said really took me aback.
	Yeah, that Marsha interview or whatever it was.
	Did you watch it?
	I don't know.
	There's some circumstantial stuff.
	I just read the bits and pieces.
	I asked for a link for it and finally got it on Bell Gab yesterday.
	So I'll listen to it after the Gapcast here.
	But that's the only part that really bugs me.
	Yeah, there's Hart was really shady and did a lot of shady stuff, but we don't really know what he was going through when he was a younger man either.
	It kind of seems like maybe he turned his life around a little bit, but then again, it's a Heather thing, maybe not.
	But anyways, you do a great job.
	So I appreciate the show.
	I'd rate myself as a seven.
	All right.
	Seven on 10 ain't bad.
	That's all right.
	I'll give myself a seven.
	Thanks, buddy.
	Have a good night.
	If you want to call in, we'll be happy to talk to you.
	The number is 573-837-4948, 573-837-4948.
	Perhaps there is an element of unfairness in people coming out of the woodwork.
	I wouldn't say coming out of the woodwork necessarily as it relates to Vincent.
	There's no woodwork for him to come out of.
	He's publicly commented on these matters for many years now, and he is, in fact, the biological son of Art Bell.
	So if anybody has cartlanch to discuss these things, I would think that it would be Vincent.
	But I can see that there is an element of unfairness about it all.
	But that is the nature of what happens when people die.
	I mean, we've all seen Mommy Dearest.
	People start talking when people die.
	That's just sort of what happens.
	It'll be really interesting to see if Heather makes her way back to the air on May 28th.
	I can't imagine what the delay is, if it's a technical delay or if it's because of some form of legal complication that's preventing her from starting up her podcast until the 28th.
	I have no idea what it is.
	I was a little surprised, I will say, to see Keith acquiring information, process information on Twitter.
	You'd think that if he had a lawyer, that the lawyer would have mechanisms right at his disposal to find out exactly where he needed to send what paperwork.
	But that's kind of the way that went down.
	I was a little surprised by that.
	And that's, in fact, what caused me to believe that perhaps Keith is not terribly serious about all of this.
	And now we've learned, because I feel like if he were serious about this whole thing, I think that more credible or official or conventional processes of acquiring that information, like mailing addresses and stuff, would have been used.
	Furthermore, we've now learned, I believe, from Dave Schrader himself having posted in Bellgab that, in fact, the phone system was left with Heather.
	So the idea that the phone system was confiscated as Heather said it was, although maybe she was simply saying that the phone numbers no longer work, but the physical phone equipment is still there, according to Dave Schrader.
	I'm not sure.
	I saw that comment by Dave in passing, but it's really something to witness when you ask yourself, what is it that's going to, in fact, keep this show off of the air for what are we looking at?
	Another nine days now?
	That has to be something legal in nature.
	And I saw posted somewhere.
	I don't have notes in front of me, so I'm sorry I can't do this with a little bit more specificity, but I saw something referenced somewhere suggesting that Keith is not going to pursue anything legally against Heather if she simply changes the name of the show.
	And if that's in fact true, I would say that's pretty generous.
	And I think that she should take that offer.
	And beyond it being an offer pertaining to any legal matter, I've suggested all along that she should do her own thing, her own show with her own music with a different name in a different time slot.
	It should be entirely her own thing.
	And that's why I think that had she simply opened up HeatherWade.com, started up a stream as I discussed earlier, which is painfully easy to do, woefully easy.
	Had she just simply done that, I think that this whole thing could have worked out quite a bit better for her than it has.
	You don't have to attach yourself to anybody else in order to do this.
	That's why I don't even, if someone comes to me now and they say, hey, could I put my podcast on UFOShip.com, I don't even really want to be bothered with that because you don't need me.
	You can do this so easily on your own and probably far more effectively as well because you'll have complete control of all branding and you'll be the focal point of whatever it is that people see when they land on your site or participate in your little kingdom that you set up for yourself.
	Hi, you're on the GADCAST.
	Hello.
	Hey, MD.
	Hey, buddy.
	Great show tonight.
	Hey, thanks.
	So after listening to all of Art's creepiness and everything with his son and how what an awful dad he was, I kind of feel like just holding on to the name of the show is like, just let Heather have it or just actually get let Keith fight it as soon as Heather has to change the name,
	then don't let Dave get signed, have a new name or Keith or let them pick something else.
	But it's just Left me with an icky feeling wanting to hear that show name and everything tied in with art.
	Let's just move on from it.
	I love all his old shows, and we could still enjoy everything, but everything else just holding on to that just seems worthless at this point.
	You think from both Dave and Heather's perspective, it seems that way?
	Well, I could see why Heather wants it.
	She's got a floating art head in the background and imaginary cigarettes floating around.
	I could see why she wants it, but they've got a successful show name, I think, to move on without it.
	But I'd still just hang on until Heather has to dump the name and change everything.
	And then once she changes her name, then hopefully Keith does too.
	I think that would have been advisable for both parties involved.
	I think that a name change would have, I mean, is there really that much value in the words Midnight in the Desert?
	Does it have that much top of mind awareness?
	What has top-of-mind awareness is Art Bell.
	That has top of mind awareness.
	But he's gone.
	He's not going to be doing anything.
	And so at that point, how much value really is there in holding on to that name of that show?
	I mean, I'm not going to...
	I'm not going to...
	Yeah, that is true.
	That name does need to be retained for Baby Alex so that in 24 to 27 years, when he's ready to begin podcasting, he will have a show to step into because he won't be able to do that on his own.
	He'll need to receive that from Heather.
	Well, he's got a head start.
	He's already singing Dada, and he's like three months old.
	It just seems to me that for both parties involved, it would have been good to make a clean break.
	I mean, Dave Schrader is already, he's not playing the chase for his intro, correct?
	And he's not using any of the same old art bell bumper music.
	He's using stuff that's entirely produced explicitly for his show.
	That's true too, isn't it?
	Yes.
	Okay, so.
	Well, I love everything that they're doing, but to know the name that, I mean, I will say this.
	I would never think to myself, I'm listening to Midnight in the Desert.
	No, I would think to myself, I'm listening to Dave Schrader.
	That's what I would think as a listener.
	So, I don't know.
	Maybe it's just a we could bring a branding expert on the air and talk to them about it and see what they have to say.
	Somebody who majored in marketing.
	Is there anybody listening who has a master's in marketing?
	I'd like your assessment of this situation.
	What's the best way forward for Dave Schrader and company as it relates to Midnight in the Desert?
	I can't imagine they're going to change the name.
	Frankly, I never cared too terribly much for the name anyway.
	I thought it was a mouthful.
	I don't feel like it rolls off the tongue very well.
	I never really cared for that Crystal Gale song too terribly much.
	It sounds like something that, you know, I'm not even going to go there, but it's not a bad song.
	It just, it's not.
	I hate the word genre, but I mean, if we're going to talk about music genres, that's not exactly something you're going to catch me driving down the road in my 74 pacer rattling windows with.
	Midnight in the desert?
	No, I don't see that happening.
	It would be good for a name change.
	If you want to call in, I'm about to shut all this down.
	573-837-4948, 573-837-4948.
	If you want to be on the Gabcast, I think that I would like to specifically point out the brilliance of Bart L.
	I think that he has tapped into something comedically that has undoubtedly, inarguably, been one of the funniest chapters in my opinion of Bellgab history.
	I was talking to somebody about Bart L's parody site and Bart's sharts.
	I did tell them that the whole Bart L thing and what's happened with that has, in fact, been one of the favorite chapters in Bell Gab history for me that I've come across.
	And so my congrats to him.
	He's obviously a funny guy.
	Holy shit.
	I would like to say, though, I'm a little bit disappointed.
	If I go to BartLLegacy.com, it no longer looks like artbellegacy.com.
	He's using a proper WordPress installation, but I think it might be because he anticipated that artbelllegacy.com was also going to go with WordPress, and then he'd be able to just quickly use whatever theme they took from whatever website.
	I'm wondering if that was maybe his rationale for changing it up.
	But I would like to suggest, just for the sake of synchronicity, congruity, authenticity, it really ought to look exactly like the artbelllegacy.com site.
	That's just my opinion.
	I mean, don't take that negatively.
	I'm still eminently impressed and humored with what you've done, no matter what decision you make.
	But I do think it should continue looking exactly like the Art Bell Legacy site.
	Can you imagine that?
	Can you imagine doing your own podcast and buying up the domain name artbellegacy.com?
	What chutzpah that must take.
	To me, that is that's that's kind of low rent.
	And that's me being diplomatic in the course of assessing what that is.
	That's a little bit low rent.
	Just do your own thing.
	Stand on your own two feet.
	You don't have to sidle up to anybody else's legacy.
	You are not anyone's legacy.
	You are your own thing.
	Be your own thing.
	You don't need to just hit yourself to that star.
	You don't have to do that.
	But taking a look here, it seems as though artbellegacy.com is in active development.
	And that would seem to indicate that they have no intention whatsoever of moving past the whole Art Bell Legacy thing.
	Frankly, it was my observation.
	I don't know if I publicly said this or not, but I was assuming that this whole Art Bell Legacy thing and having Art Bell's name in the domain was going to be the legal hang-up.
	I didn't dream that there was going to be a problem with telephones or that anybody gave too terribly much of a shit necessarily about the name of the show.
	I thought that this whole Art Bell Legacy thing, that was what was going to wind up being roundly discussed as the ongoing legal saga that we can all sit around and sip coffee to.
	But it turns out not to have been the case.
	Or maybe there's still more to come.
	I don't know.
	Can you do that?
	Can you just take a celebrity's name and put it in your domain name and then put the word legacy at the end of it?
	Don't you have to have some sort of explicit permission to do that?
	I would think so.
	But then again, well, maybe the argument could be made that Bellgab, having that surname in the domain name, was in fact in violation in the same way.
	I don't know.
	But it seems like something a little bit questionable for sure.
	Okay, well, there's no air conditioner in this room.
	I have to open the door in order for conditioned air to reach my body.
	And I swear to God, I am a fat, sweaty tub of shit right now.
	And I mean, there is an air conditioner about three feet away from my head, but if I turn this thing on, it's going to sound absolutely ridiculous.
	So I think we're done here.
	We've done about two hours.
	That's pretty solid where I come from.
	And I want to thank everybody for tuning in tonight.
	It really is cool to know that there are so many people interested in tuning into this podcast and checking out what we do here.
	And, you know, I just realized I was going to pot this up in order to play the outro music.
	And I realized just as I potted it up, I heard Heather's voice.
	Let's see.
	You know, the last time.
	That's because I'm on Bart.
	I'm on Art.
	It's already screwing me up.
	I'm on ArtBellLegacy.com.
	And if you go there, you immediately begin hearing her.
	A really interesting show, had a great time.
	Yeah, that's about all I can do.
	Yeah, that's what I heard under the music as I was potting it up here.
	It kind of threw me for a loop.
	Anyway, thanks for tuning in to this podcast.
	Thanks for checking it out.
	It's really nice to see all the people who obviously have an interest in what's going on here.
	There's no point in doing this if nobody's going to listen to it.
	So that's great.
	I hope you have a great night.
	If you want to download this podcast, you can do so by visiting ufoship.com and just click on the GACAST in the main menu up at the top.
	Although, once this is posted, if you get there quickly after it is posted, it'll simply be the first item in the list on the main page that you see anyway.
	And there is an RSS feed that you can subscribe to at ufoship.com, which will enable you to have this show automatically downloaded to your mobile device as soon as it's posted, or at least as soon as your mobile device pulls the show in.
	I would recommend if you're on Android, use a podcatcher called Beyond Pod.
	That's the best way I have found.
	That's the best podcast listening experience I've encountered.
	So check out Beyond Pod.
	If you'd like to go to ufoship.com, click on the RSS feed, which will be posted right there on the main page underneath the audio of this show.
	And you can just add that to your podcatcher.
	And you don't even have to worry about it.
	When we do a show, you'll get it.
	If we don't, you won't.
	Have a good night.

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