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August 26, 2018 — Douglas Robinson


Gene Steinberg

Forum Super Hero
Staff member
On the chance that this episode generates a lot of discussion, I hope it doesn't suffer the same fate as last week's thread. It was going like gangbusters for a while, but then someone killed it by deleting a large portion of the posts.
 
I've heard every episode multiple times and love the show. I listen every Sunday religiously.

This is the first episode I absolutely couldn't finish. I made it about a third of the way through and gave up.

I was just like "Wow...."
 
I respect these opinions. Obviously we didn't expect a religious-themed dream explanation for his creative process, and his belief that the vampires he writes about are real. We expected something more physical.

For that I'm sorry. But I think his viewpoints are valid in the sense that hundreds of millions of people hold similar religious views and, regardless of what you and I believe, they should be accepted.
 
Jerry Clark's third edition of his UFO encyclopedia is out soon.

Calvin Parker comes this weekend.

Old school enough?

You see, we are dinged if we have too many UFO shows. When we stray, it's hit or miss.

If you're a subscriber to Paracast+, I think Randall and I talked through this some.

If you're not a subscriber, we're having a 50% off sale, limited time, for 5-year subs.

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All right, a pitch, but it's our show and our right to pitch :)
 
I have to admit, the beginning was rough but by the end of the show I was really loving this guy! And you have to give Gene credit, it's not like he just let the man ramble on, he challenged him with some valid questions.
 
Thanks. And Randall did a great job asking his questions with a very sympathetic attitude towards something that clearly wasn't in tune with his religious ideas.
 
I've heard every episode multiple times and love the show. I listen every Sunday religiously.

This is the first episode I absolutely couldn't finish. I made it about a third of the way through and gave up.

I was just like "Wow...."
I know how you feel. I had trouble staying awake listening to it myself. But we do get listeners who like this sort of subject matter, so I guess it just goes with the territory.
 
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[...]
This is the first episode I absolutely couldn't finish. I made it about a third of the way through and gave up. [...]

I gave up too. And it's not often I do that. (But like other listeners to a recent show, I gave up listening to the rambling, tetchy Don Ecker...)

From the parts I heard, you both tried to pin Douglas Robinson down, but it still turned out to be a poor show. You win some, you lose some. But how much research did you do into this guy first?

Anyway, nice try getting out of the UFO zone, which has surely been stripped bare of anything new in the last 10 years at least. New people come and go. New 'good' cases appear and fade away. It's my main interest in the paranormal field, but I can't remember the last time I heard or read anything truly new (even Richard Dolan seems to be running out of steam recently) so I was kind of looking forward to something different. Never mind...

What about a different turn for the show occasionally? How about getting two opposing experts in a filed. For example a proponent of 'free energy' (John Bedini, Mehran Keshe?) against someone who understand physics and how test equipment can give erroneous results? Or a HAARP doomsday-machine advocate against someone who understands RF engineering and atmospheric physics? Really thrash out some hard facts and clear the deck of woo? (Mmm, that doesn't sound very impartial does it? Maybe a bit too "we want to prove the woo-merchants to be charlatans" - well someone should do it!)
 
I gave up too. And it's not often I do that. (But like other listeners to a recent show, I gave up listening to the rambling, tetchy Don Ecker...)

From the parts I heard, you both tried to pin Douglas Robinson down, but it still turned out to be a poor show. You win some, you lose some. But how much research did you do into this guy first?

Anyway, nice try getting out of the UFO zone, which has surely been stripped bare of anything new in the last 10 years at least. New people come and go. New 'good' cases appear and fade away. It's my main interest in the paranormal field, but I can't remember the last time I heard or read anything truly new (even Richard Dolan seems to be running out of steam recently) so I was kind of looking forward to something different. Never mind...

What about a different turn for the show occasionally? How about getting two opposing experts in a filed. For example a proponent of 'free energy' (John Bedini, Mehran Keshe?) against someone who understand physics and how test equipment can give erroneous results? Or a HAARP doomsday-machine advocate against someone who understands RF engineering and atmospheric physics? Really thrash out some hard facts and clear the deck of woo? (Mmm, that doesn't sound very impartial does it? Maybe a bit too "we want to prove the woo-merchants to be charlatans" - well someone should do it!)
Thanks for the comments. Just out of curiosity, I tried more to better understand Doug's process than pin him down on how out there his beliefs were. Would you have preferred a more aggressive approach? Or how would you like to see these types of situations handled on the show?
 
Thanks for the comments. Just out of curiosity, I tried more to better understand Doug's process than pin him down on how out there his beliefs were. Would you have preferred a more aggressive approach? Or how would you like to see these types of situations handled on the show?

For myself in this situation - I would like the hosts to stop probing the guest to explain or prove their claims, and just encourage them to tell their story.

Once the story is told in full, maybe spend the last half-hour with the probing and debunking.

I sometimes listen to the same guests on different podcasts, and I’ve noticed that as soon as the host starts questioning their claims, the guest clams up and the whole thing grinds to a halt. Their story gets cut short, and you don’t get to the juicy details of their experiences and theories. Often the best bits only come out after they’re comfortable.

For example, when they interviewed that Australian doctor/faith-healer, I was really looking forward to her stories (which I had heard on another interview) about supposedly removing nanotechnology from a patient, and how another patient was supposedly able to ‘see the matrix’ after treatment. But we never got to hear those stories, because the hosts kept drilling her about how it worked and to validate herself. If she was coaxed to tell the whole story, there would be a lot more cool things to discuss!
 
For myself in this situation - I would like the hosts to stop probing the guest to explain or prove their claims, and just encourage them to tell their story. Once the story is told in full, maybe spend the last half-hour with the probing and debunking.

I sometimes listen to the same guests on different podcasts, and I’ve noticed that as soon as the host starts questioning their claims, the guest clams up and the whole thing grinds to a halt. Their story gets cut short, and you don’t get to the juicy details of their experiences and theories. Often the best bits only come out after they’re comfortable.

For example, when they interviewed that Australian doctor/faith-healer, I was really looking forward to her stories (which I had heard on another interview) about supposedly removing nanotechnology from a patient, and how another patient was supposedly able to ‘see the matrix’ after treatment. But we never got to hear those stories, because the hosts kept drilling her about how it worked and to validate herself. If she was coaxed to tell the whole story, there would be a lot more cool things to discuss!
Thanks for your comments. I don't recall the Australian faith healer episode. I do recall Doug thanking me for my suggestions and I didn't get the impression from him that he felt attacked. He was also very brief with some of his answers and wasn't one to rambled on for as long as you'd give him. That was one of the things that made the interview so challenging ( for me ). It would really have helped to have some more questions in the question bank too. So if you have any more suggestions that's a really good place to post what sort of things you'd like the guest to address, and there's still time for you to get yours in!
 
Thanks for the comments. Just out of curiosity, I tried more to better understand Doug's process than pin him down on how out there his beliefs were. Would you have preferred a more aggressive approach? Or how would you like to see these types of situations handled on the show?

It depends how defensive the guest is. You can be as hard as you like with for example Steven Greer who is quite capable of (aggressively) standing up for himself. On the other hand, as Nix says, with other guests you need to draw them out to tell their story, then ask the awkward questions. It gives the guest a chance to do what they came for, but exposes any inconsistencies, which could be innocent oversights. OTOH it could expose that all is not quite right with their yarn and they are only being interviewed to sell a book or promote some film/documentary and evidence, truth, facts are not really part of the agenda. We call it to "give them enough rope to hang themselves"!
 
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Thanks for your comments. I don't recall the Australian faith healer episode. I do recall Doug thanking me for my suggestions and I didn't get the impression from him that he felt attacked. He was also very brief with some of his answers and wasn't one to rambled on for as long as you'd give him. That was one of the things that made the interview so challenging ( for me ). It would really have helped to have some more questions in the question bank too. So if you have any more suggestions that's a really good place to post what sort of things you'd like the guest to address, and there's still time for you to get yours in!
I thought your interview technique with the vampire author was quite smooth and tactful. You have a gentle respectful tone. You pressed some points but it never got adversarial and he didn’t get defensive.

Even Jerry Seinfeld gets stumped with agonising guests. Checks out the Jim Carrey episode of ‘Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee’. Carrey acts like a spoilt 90s teenage d-bag. It must take a lot of skill to handle different personalities.
 
I have to say I enjoyed the show in a sado masochist way. I appears he basically writes hack vampire stories for the harlequin romance crowd. in today's self publishing world everybody can write a book and have it published. He is one of a million guys writing these types of books. Regardless listening to a "normal" person explain his process was interesting. Hard to believe he has a publicist and that they reached you guys. I was hoping for a real good show with a vampire expert but I guess I have to wait for that. Kudos to you guys for marching through and making the interview listenable.
 
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