A happenin' place.

Located in beautiful southwestern Nevada, Pahrump is just over the mountain from "Sin City" Las Vegas. Long a sleepy little desert town, Pahrump is now growing by leaps and bounds. With the California border just a few miles away, Pahrump has become a mecca for tax-weary Californians looking for a cheap place to live and retire. It's also known by many convention-goers as home of the closest legal brothel to Las Vegas.

It's the home of Art Bell!

Pahrump is also the home of Art Bell, a world-renowned radio talk show host tuned into by thousands of eager listeners each night. Most of you have never heard of Bell, so a little background is in order. During each show, Bell discusses the vital issues, issues that affect all of us deeply. Topics such as cattle mutilations, alien abductions, the "Mars Face," cities on the Moon - all are treated by Bell with great reverence. He also has famous, credible guests on his show, such as Ed Dames, fiction author and alien abductee Whitley Streiber, plus the famous Richard "Dick" Hoagland. Of course, my use of the words "vital" and "credible" depend on the way you view the world. Are you gullible and superstitious?

March 2005 Update: In case you haven't figured it out yet, it's been a while since I've updated this place! Maintaining a web site is a hassle, especially when time is short. So I went and got myself a blog. This is where my updates will be. Come on by! All the cool people are blogging. :-)

Art and "The Quickening"

In Art Bell's not-too-distant past, his shows focused on various "new world order" conspiracies. After the Oklahoma City bombing, some in the media blamed Bell for fanning the flames of stupidity. Of course, Bell can't be held responsible for what one or two nuts decide to do with a truckload of fertilizer, but Bell nevertheless quickly shifted the focus of his show to UFO's and the paranormal. As part of this shift in focus, Bell introduced a new concept. He calls it "The Quickening." Whenever something bad happens, Bell says it's a sign of "The Quickening." If there's a plane crash somewhere, Bell trumpets this as a sign. Such events seem to be some form of warning, perhaps of our impending doom. "The Quickening" takes on a religious fervor, little different from the strident warnings of a Baptist preacher. Others, who are better writers than I, dismiss Bell and his fans as a bunch of drunks who stay up all night talking about UFO's. But I wonder if Bell's followers are all that harmless.

How gullible is Art Bell? Incredibly, mind-bogglingly gullible! Want a funny example? Some of the alt.fan.art-bell newsgroup regulars created three phony newspaper articles about a mysterious "hole" discovered by "Dr. Glen Quarnstrom". "Dr." Glen (who sadly passed away earlier this year) was one of those alt.fan.art-bell regulars. They faxed these "articles" to Art Bell... and he repeatedly talked about them on the air as if the "hole" story was legitimate! Here are the articles that Art read on the air.

Bell-spotting

Our trip to Pahrump took place on Friday, November 28, 1997. My wife and I were vacationing in Las Vegas for a few days, and I wanted to visit Death Valley. Pahrump was on the way. As a proud member of the Skept-Ti-Cult, I simply could not pass up this incredible opportunity to visit the home of Bell, "In the Kingdom of Nye." As the crow flies, Pahrump could be a suburb of Las Vegas. But since Mt. Charleston separates the two, you have to drive around a mountain range to get to Pahrump. After cresting a final ridge, you can look far down into Pahrump Valley.

Driving into town, we made two stops. First, the ubiquitous "Chamber of Commerce" sign that all small towns erect near their city limits. You've seen them - they hold the name plates for the local Rotary Club, Knights of Columbus, and the Moose Lodge. I added my own sign, which may still be there, thanks to the desert climate. In case you're wondering, the "Yes, yes, oh yes!" is my way of paying homage to Art Bell's number one fan.

Next stop? The "Welcome To Pahrump" sign. Wild Turkey is expensive on the Las Vegas Strip, and since I'm not into hard liquor, I stuck with a small bottle of stuff. But did I make a toast to Bell and his fans in front of the sign. Ecch.

Pahrump truly is trailer park heaven. Which made "Bell-spotting" close to impossible for the short time we were there. Every home it seems has been rolled in. Sure, some of the mobile homes are "nice" in a sheet-metal sort of way. But since everyone in Pahrump lives in a mobile home, it's pretty hard to tell the slums of Pahrump apart from the rich side of town, where I can only presume Bell lives. We looked for tell-tale signs of Bell, but with so many satellite dishes and Airstreams, we had no luck. The people of Pahrump (Pahrumpians?) we friendly, but were of no help. Bell-spore was indistinguishable.

Bell-less in Pahrump

Our "Quest For Bell" was not successful. But while driving around town, I came up with a theory: Is the very existence of Pahrump evidence of The Quickening? A remote town of mobile homes, clustered in one of the harshest deserts in North America, and existing for no apparent reason other than prostitution and as a haven for the heavily-taxed. Surely the creation of Pahrump is out of the ordinary. But is it evidence of The Quickening? It's something to consider.

Photos copyright Lou Minatti, 1997.