Alternative news: the ufology beat

Call me crazy, but I’ve decided to trade a week of Steve Bassett’s Citizen Hearing on Disclosure at the National Press Club for a few hours spent at the new “UFO Experience” exhibit in Myrtle Beach. Why? Because the Hearing will be nothing that I haven’t heard before and will involve almost  nobody I haven’t seen in person already. The Myrtle Beach exhibit, on the other hand, will be … okay, nothing that I haven’t heard or seen either, but it’s closer to home and a helluva lot cheaper and almost guaranteed to be more fun than “forty researchers and military/agency witnesses (testifying) for thirty hours over five days.”

(Note to Steve: Consider jazzing up those party invites.)

So I’ll take the new Nikon and the not much older Canon to Broadway at the Beach and write an honest-to-goodness feature article for Fete, just like back in the day.  I’ll ring up Stanton Friedman, too. He was the guest of honor at the exhibit’s opening and continues to be one of the most credible quotable creatures in the ufological forest. And one of the longest lasting.

Après le déluge

Speaking of old times, two people I rarely see anymore crossed my path this week, one by happenstance, the other by design. Both were former Centre Stage colleagues and people I genuinely like and pretty much all that’s left of that venerable institution that’s of any interest to me.

It’s strange to think that only three years ago, I lived, breathed, ate, slept and dreamed Centre Stage. When I wasn’t having transportation nightmares, that is. I still have those.

And … scene.

Michael Craig and I built our final Paris Mountain fire of the season on Tuesday, April 2. Between November 2012 and April of this year, we’d convened 17 times at Picnic Shelter #1 and burned through almost a half-cord of wood.

Other attendees, at one time or another, included Jeff Sumerel, Wofford Jones, Valdas Kotovas, Richard Beveridge, Beau Philips and Acadia. Good times had by all, I’d say. Whether the park employees enjoyed shoveling our ashes from the hearth each Wednesday morning, however, is an open question.