George Noory, a Man of Few Words

Last night's grab bag show with guests Dick Sutphen, Lon Milo DuQuette and medical researcher Christian Wilde was so chock-a-block with stupid shit, and George Noory screwing up in every possible way he's able to, that it would take me days to break it all down for you. I could write a fuckin' book on last night's show. Not to worry, though, I won't go all James Joyce on your asses right now. Ulysses. wasn't made in a day. heh.

As we all know by now, George Noory is infamous for having the vocabulary of an average 9 year old boy combined with a tendancy to mispronounce about every third word, not to mention butcher the most common popular turns of phrase. He has been criticized for it enough that he's now coping by making fun of his own mistakes when someone points them out to him, but he's rarely able to detect these mistakes on his own. I used to wonder if it was dyslexia, and that may still be a partial explanation, but more and more lately I tend to believe the man has a slight (?) learning disorder.

He just doesn't "get" certain things that he should really fully comprehend by now. For instance, in the first half-hour of the show Noory was discussing karma with past-life-regressionist, Dick Sutphen. Now, one would think that a man who has always been fascinated with past lives and hypnotherapy (even though he pronounced the word "therapist" as "thera-PIST" - emphasis on the 'pist'....), and a man who has been doing shows on metaphysical topics for more than five years, many of them based on past lives and karma, and a man wrote a fucking book which mentions karma repeatedly would know what karma is, wouldn't you? Well. Wouldn't you?

I've heard him discuss it with people before and he usually seemed to understand the basic premise of karma, but last night for some reason he was confusing karma with charisma - or that's our best guess. He was confusing karma with something else, for sure.

"I have a friend of mine," Noory said, " who has incredible karma! I mean, you can tell when she goes into a room she just lights up the place! ...When. She decides. To turn it on. If she doesn't --and she's gone through a real rough time lately, ah.. the karma has dulled. But I see it coming back now in a big way. Wwwwhat allows somebody to do that? I always thought karma was just there."

The past life expert deftly crafted an explanation that spun George's confusion of charisma and karma into a situation that made sense and actually *did* (rather loosely) pertain to actual karma, but the fact remains that Noory didn't know what the hell he was talking about.

Like I said, Noory has seemed to have somewhat of a grasp on it in the past, though, so how he got confused at this stage of the game, I don't know. Although... it's been a few months since I've read his book "Worker in the Light", which is at best a hodge podge of half-baked New Age concepts that Noory has a tenuous, at best, grasp on, and I do seem to recall that he abused karma in his book a few times, too. I imagine in the end it's just another one of a multitude of subjects that he knows just enough about to bullshit his way through.

After Noory's comment Cecil came into the office scratching his head and said, "I swear George's sense of karma is more simplistic than most fortune cookie's."

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We also got another instant classic Nooryism last night after he screwed up a commercial he was doing for his book. Most regular listeners to Coast to Coast know that Noory isn't worth a fart in the last hour. He gets sloppy and his voice drags, he is brusque with the callers, rushing them through the queue and hanging up on them before they can finish their thoughts and sometimes he gets downright testy with them and the guests. So ol' GN is riffing on a commercial for his book and says, "We're in the final stages of getting rid of the last copies of the first printing-"
at this point Dip Shit realizes what he's saying and says in a self-chastising growl, "Well, I shouldn't say it like that...", then continues,
of "Worker in the Light", um, we've gone through a lot of them.... amazon.com has some at a substantial discount and they're at your favorite bookstores around the country. So if you're inclined, pick it up and then, ah...send me an email and we'll send ya a signed sticker - a little autograph you could just uhhh afflix to the inside cover."

Apparently sometime during the rest of the commercial break somebody informed Noory he said "afflix", so when back on with the guest Christian Wilde, he jokes and says,

"Hey Christian, I think I just invented my own word. I think I just said afflix instead of affix on my signature!! I think I'd make a fortune if I put out my own encyclopedia of my own words!!!."

Good grief. I wonder if anyone pointed that one out to him later....

And that's just another one of thousands he's said over the years. I just can't wrap my head around how clueless and stupid he is. How in God's name did this man get through four frickin' years of college??!!?? With a degree in a communications field, yet? His reading and writing skills are poor. Doesn't listen well. Never learned to type, either. Something tells me the little gal who he got knocked up and was married to throughout his college career helped him squeak through a lot of his classes. I don't see how he could have done it on his own.


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ALSO:
Duly noted is Agent K's comment left on my last entry about Noory hanging up on callers at inopportune times. That was an astute observation that I intend to explore further, and thanks for bringing it up, Agent K. It's quite possible that nice lady will suffer an untimely death thanks to Noory's inattentive rudeness. Whadda self-absorbed prick.

Maybe Someone IS Paying Attention...

How ironic that several hours after I posted my screed on George Noory holding spontaneous show planning meetings while on the air, the first "guest" on Coast to Coast that night was former and now re-instated producer, Alan Corbeth. Also ironic is that Noory's fifteen-ish minute on-air chat with Corbeth sounded like a business meeting in and of itself. Not so much the important part of the meeting where things get done. More like the aftermath. The part that comes after The Big Guy, The Fixer, attends the Real Meeting with the worker bees of the staff, discussing all the important issues and strategies for overhauls and forward movement and then bumps into "TheTalent" in the hallway on the way out, exchanging pleasantries, assuring him he's doing a great job and telling him everything's going to be just fine.

The C2C website frequently has up a message to the fans soliciting them for guest ideas and contact information for anyone they think would be a good guest, and there have been a few times when Noory even mentioned it on the air, as well as actively soliciting any random callers that seem to have an interesting story that seems remotely legitimate. For long time Coast fans, I don't need to tell you that when Art Bell ran that show - with the help of producer Lisa Lyon (who is still a producer) and Alan Corbeth, there was never a lack of interesting guests, nor a need for the new, ridiculous & juvenile "Floating Format", which basically means that they're flying by the seats of their pants and will take any guest (often procured at the last minute) that will be on, for whatever length of time they can manage. The current Coast shows also frequently resort to their current stable of "stand by guests", who in essence are just media whores who are happy to be called to talk any old time. Your Richard C. Hoaglands, Stan Deyos, Jerome Corsis, et al.

Part of the reason Art, with the help of Lyon and Corbeth, always had great, interesting, intelligent and unusual guests - guests you'd never heard of before, (As opposed to members of any given Star Trek related show, Gary Busey and Pat Boone - to name a few.) was because Art Bell reads books. Fiction, non-fiction- it matters not. He once said he tries to read a book a day. Mind you, he managed that while doing 5-7 radio shows a week, which he did a great deal of the prep work for, often including contacting the guests and setting up the interviews himself. (I'm pretty sure Noory's "prep work" involves reading all of the Coast fan forums, I've caught him on one five minutes before his show was supposed to start.)

The staff behind Noory is much, much larger than Art Bell's triumvirate, and yet they still seem to be scrambling, and Corbeth did little to dispel that impression, saying of Noory's staff, "They're just in there churning out guests as best they can..." and shortly after that , Noory said,
"Now it's time for us to continue pushing, because I think the insight you've been able to bring now to us from before and basically sitting and listening for four years - you're really gonna help us to continue to cantapult this show beyond anything that's going on in the country."
( Yes, he did say "cantapult", and yes, I did transcribe it exactly the way he said it.)

For a couple of months I've been noticing an increase in negative chatter concerning Noory and his performance on various Coast fan message boards that even allow that sort of thing. More than the usual grumblings and critical observations. Furthermore, the fans who are expressing displeasure have gotten to the breaking point, and are actually organizing to take action and try to do something about it, rather than just bitch. They're calling local radio station programmers, contacting sponsors, contacting various agencies to see the "books" on the show's ratings to see how much smoke is being blown up their asses... they're getting mad as hell and they really not gonna take it anymore.

The natives are restless, and it appears that someone in the Coast to Coast camp has finally taken notice. Enough so that somebody , and by the Noory / Corbeth exchange, it doesn't appear to have been Noory, decided that they needed to pull out The Big Guns and make some serious changes. From Noory's words and inflections, it seems that at least one person on their staff finally said, "Enough is enough - we need help, and we need help bad, and the only guy that's gonna get it done right is Corbeth."

Corbeth stated that his role will only be part time, and from what he said, it appears that he will be in charge of procuring good guests in a timely fashion. Good God let's hope he does. Of course, the best guests in the world can't make a difference if Noory doesn't read their books and understand the subject matter, so we'll see if Corbeth can really work some magic and either convince Noory to actually read a book now & then, rather than skim it for "the meat" , Evelyn Wood-style, as he claims to do. (Everybody who believes that raise your hands...)

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ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS:

I thought it was funny that Ian Punnett talked in a warm, friendly & comfortable way about Corbeth, even chuckling and calling him "Uncle Alan", but the normally cocky, egotistical Noory was reverent to the point of grovelling. A complete suck-up. He said,
"....I have a special role for you in my heart, because you helped put me where I am today. And the fact that you're gonna be there pushing and carrying us for years to come, and as long as you want, is very important to me."

As a geeky aside, the copy or Corbeth's bio that Noory was given to read as his introduction is here , and if you have Streamlink and are able to listen to the show, you will have a brief example of what I've been trying to tell y'all for years, and that is George is not a good reader, does not have a firm grasp on grammar, and he tries to ad-lib his copy which adds to further mistakes in grammatical continuity.

George Noory is a Fucking Idiot-Discuss

How's that for a start? For several weeks I've had several people prompting me to post more here, and to share my many thoughts and rants on the performance of Coast to Coast AM's week night host (or as a very dear, former C2C fan says: "weak night host"), George Noory.


Unfortunately I've been crippled by a form of writer's block. In my case it's caused by such a wealth of material to draw from that I have no earthly idea where to begin. George Noory sucks so much, so hard and so badly that I'm completely overwhelmed. Should I begin with his lack of ability to speak? And if so, should I focus on his inability to pronounce the simplest and most common household word? Or should I focus on the fact that this self-aggrandizing "consummate professional" has so much saliva in his mouth at any given time that he makes Daffy Duck seem like Sir John Gielgud?

Perhaps I could focus on his grammar, syntax and usage, which has been of interest to me for a long time. I desperately want to understand why a 56 year old man who was born and raised in the United States of America - Dearborn Heights, Michigan, to be exact - can so blithely and unwittingly butcher the English language on a regular basis the way he does.

I think I'll save that for a later, more in depth study, but for now, I think the best explanation may be that he was probably raised in a bi-lingual (Lebanese-English) household whose occupants probably didn't have an aptitude for grammar, regardless of the language being spoken.

Or it could just be that he's stupid. I dunno.

Today, though, I'll leave it with a very annoying and unprofessional habit he's gotten into in the last year.

For whatever reason - and please, I encourage you all to "discuss", as Linda Richman would prompt -- Noory has decided that it's a good idea to conduct his business on the air. I can't remember how many times in the last couple of months he has had a guest on, and in the middle of an interview , the guest will say something that prompts Noory to be struck with an idea for a future show.

When this happens, (and you can practically hear the virtual light bulb, dim as it is, turn on over his balding noggin ) Noory invariably will interrupt his guest, often mid-sentence, to tell them of his idea for a future show that may or may not include them, and proceed to engage them in helping him to plan out the particulars of this show.

In essence he brings the entire program and it's intent to a screeching halt, because - stop the presses!, he's had an idea, He will then go on to tell his guest what his envisioned plan for this future show will be, how it will include them, what they need to do to help him facilitate that, and that "When we go to break, I want you to give your phone number to Tommy (producer, call screener, and "Jim Fowler" to George's "Marlin Perkins", Tom Danheiser) so that Tommy can contact them later to help set up this show. This will often go on for ten minutes or so before Noory remembers he's supposed to be talking to the guest about their latest endeavors, and even then George Noory will frequently interject something pertaining to his "great idea" about this potential "upcoming show" throughout the rest of the interview.

Last night's show, with guest medium and demon aficionado, Chip Coffey, was a textbook example. As a sort of ace-in-the-hole for his interview, Chip had brought along a woman whose alias was "Maria Simpson", and who was a friend of Mark David Chapman, John Lennon's murderer.

"Ms. Simpson" was an older, genteel, soft-spoken, Southern lady, and Coffey and Simpson were of the opinion that Chapman had murdered John Lennon because a demon from Ms. Simpson's house had attached itself to Chapman and instructed him to do so. As she spoke it became evident that Ms. Simpson was well acquainted with Chapman (now residing in a solitary cell in Attica) at one time, but had not been in touch with him for years, and by her hesitant tone and inflections, it seemed he would just as soon not have anymore contact with her, nor she with him.

Noory (who proudly claims that "the meat of the matter" is his forte, subtlety & nuance be damned...) missed that part, not surprising, as it was blatantly obvious by his many silences throughout the interview that he was busy reading forums and fast blasts on the internet, trying to mine the minds of other people who were paying attention for good questions to ask, since he clearly had nothing.

Excuse me for a moment, but may I? HE'S A FUCKING IDIOT!!! . Not only that, but a rude idiot.

Near the end of Ms. Simpson's "appearance" on the show, as she was speaking, Noory was hit with one of his trademark, Geraldo-esque, 1/2 baked, exploitational ideas, and ground the interview to a halt to ask Ms. Simpson if she could arrange for her, Coffey and himself to go to Attica to interview Chapman about this demon!!!

He at least had the sense to ask Ms. Coffey if she would be comfortable with this, and she quickly but graciously replied "I don't know whether I would or not, it's a part of my life that was so traumatic I don't think I really would care to." , and her tone was so obviously troubled and uncomfortable. But did Noory let it go? Or care? Or even notice ?? Oh hell no!! He then proceeded to pester her & ask if she would at least arrange it so he and Coffey could go and do that. She agreed to try. At that point Noory told her to hang on so that she could give the ubiquitous Tommy her telephone number and contact information. When she agreed, she was basically "excused" from the interview, and you could practically hear Noory's thought, "Your money's on the counter, bitch, I'm through with you."

What a fucking ass. The woman had just said that it was a traumatic part of her life, someplace she's not comfortable revisiting, she's not on the show for any gain of her own, hell, she probably only agreed to do it because she didn't want to seem rude, and here's that fucking, insensitive prick Noory goading her on the air so he can come off as what he touts himself to be (and is not) - a "cutting edge investigative reporter". He is such an Geraldo.

And one more thought, before I leave you, Fans of Coast to Coast - If the lady is on the show already, on the goddam radio talking, via telephone, WHY THE FUCK DO THEY NEED HER PHONE NUMBER???. How did she get on the air in the first place? Did they have her speed dial the Wild Card Line until she got through? Who the fuck set this show up? One would presume the producer, Tom Danheiser, who is right there in the studio with them. Surely he already had her phone number, as well as that of Chip Coffey, who also clearly had to have had her phone number - why the fuck would they be asking her for it?

Furthermore, and to the point of my entire rant, WHY THE FUCK IS NOORY SETTING UP INTERVIEWS AND FUTURE SHOWS WHILE HE'S ON THE AIR????. Whether it's his job or the producer's, that shit should be done off the air, there is absolutely no reason why that needs to be happening. Yet it does. On a regular basis.

Is it Noory just trying to "show off"? Does he think it makes him look like some kind of a big wheel to be wheeling and dealing and "making things happen" right there in front of everyone?

Or maybe he feels his producers are too inept to handle it themselves. Could that be? Maybe he's afraid Tommy or Lisa Lyon will drop the ball. I don't fucking know, but I sure would like to.

Coast to Coast under George Noory's "guidance" has been a dog and pony show for quite some time now, but I think The Ringmaster has finally lost any kind of grip on reality he's ever had, and that was a shaky grip, at best, to begin with.

Man he sucks.