Culture of Contact Episode 23: Bridget Brown vs. Jeremy Vaeni
Played: 1153 | Download | Duration: 00:00:00
Dr. Bridget Brown goes head to head, toe to toe, and laugh for laugh with patient Jeremy Vaeni in this, Jer's first public encounter with a skeptic (...you know...not including his mom.)
Bridget is a writing professor at Montclair State University and author of, They Know Us Better Than We Know Ourselves - The History And Politics Of Alien Abduction.
Jeremy has a podcast he does from his bedroom.
It's a fair fight.
Feel free to leave a comment or discuss it HERE.
Nothing short of a brilliant freakin' interview with a brilliant person, done brilliantly. Impressed kudos to you and Dr. Brown!
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Excellent interview! Very personable guest and I enjoyed the conversational tone. Well done.
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Brilliant interview! Just thought I'd join the crowd for once. Ummm...I am getting a real different vision of your show from the concept of the podcast coming from your bedroom. Are the interviewer and interviewee both in the bedroom? Maybe you could subtitle this "Pillow Talk with Jeremy". Could your alien encounters just be dreams invoked by your nocturnal encounters with bed bugs? I hear the East Coast is infested with them (bed bugs, that is). At the end of each interview, you could ask the interviewee, "Was it good for you? Cigarette?" as the audience hears the rustling of sheets.
OK, I think I need to join the "sane" world before I write something silly. Living in Phoenix, the city is bulging with tourists & hookers in strange hats and tribal clothes for Superbowl Sunday. After the weekend, the city will be $400 Million richer than right now. I hope I get my cut.
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I'm glad you stuck with it even though it's not downloadable, Will.
Funny you should mention doing a show from my bed because that's exactly the TV show idea I'll be pitching to Sci Fi & Comedy Central soon. The premise being that I made a movie and didn't get famous but my bedroom did. Think Pee Wee's Playhouse meets Jon Stewart. Then stop thinking. Hold it...hold it...there! That's it!
Can't wait to squish a live band in here.
Hey, if you see any of that 400 mil up close and personal be sure to introduce me.
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These cultural studies people are the worst breed of academic. I work in academia, but I'm one of those outcasts who is a non-academic academic.
This is such silly nonsense. Social and political fears generate abduction narratives? It doesn't sound presumptively valid all, but I'll have to read the book before commenting at length about her ideas.
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Oops. I meant to say "doesn't sound presumptively valid at all."
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So she seems like a nice enough person, but...
I haven't read her book, so let's get that out of the way before I type anything else.
From a research point of view, she's trying to claim that she has derived a theory by sampling/interviewing people who are only from the NY area? I'm gonna go out on a limb here, and assume that she didn't score very high in her statistics class. Lazy and not very useful, IMO.
And she "doesn't believe in aliens?" Listen, I've been talking more and more about how we can't definitely state that abductions - or even UFOs - are about alien civilizations, but for someone to say that they "don't believe in aliens" is akin to stating that they don't believe in extraterrestrial life, which is ignorant beyond, well, belief. Her entire approach to deductive reasoning and logic (gleaned from this interview) is that she doesn't have one. I didn't hear anything about her "theory" of abductions, in fact, she seemed rather hesitant to take ANY kind of definitive position about ANYTHING you guys talked about. Oy.
She writes about psychology - her degree is in American Studies. And the book is published by NYU Press, a school that has it's collective head VERY far up it's ass (I've taught there, what a fucking joke of a "school" - I know, this isn't an objective statement, but I ran into the biggest asshats at that asylum). What clinical expertise does she bring to the study of this topic? Sounds to me like she chose the easiest topic to bullshit about, and took advantage of the gray area surrounding the issue. She teaches writing, she wants to write a book about Howard Stern, so she's useless, IMO. "He's an interesting cultural figure?" Oh, fucking put a sock in her mouth.
Jeremy, many thanks for bringing me up as an example of a credible experiencer of high weirdness, I get the feeling that if I spoke to Bridget, I'd burn her mind like that UV flashlight in Blade charred the bloodsuckers. You did your best to make it a good interview, but I'll take the psychic bimbos over this "researcher" any day of the century.
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Seriously, this isn't the first time a collegiate type has described the entire alien abduction situation in terms of the stress and pressures of modern society, and the economic and social relativism that we face, blah, blah, blah. These people must write for a very select group in the same ivory tower, since the concepts are just plain silly when applied to life outside the campus. I sure wish I could think of her predecessor, another lady who wrote a book that seems very much like this interview. Alas, I was so disgusted by the book's condescending academic hubris (that we peasants can't tell the difference between an actual experience and futile wish fulfilment to have sex with Luke Skywalker or Jabba the Hut!), that I threw it away.
I actually did not listen to this interview because I am "download-impaired" and so far there isn't a charitable trust set up to create and distribute Jeremey Vaeni interviews to the needy. Nonetheless, I did say it was "Brilliant" because I felt that Jeremy needed an encouraging word, since I am the resident old crank.
Quantum shift: typical in 3-D reality. It rains in Phoenix a couple times a year and it is going to rain on Superbowl Sunday. So much for the Goodyear blimp. I hear the massive roof will be closed (like all those secret panels to the underground bases, y'know). But New Yorkers have been enjoying the 65 degree weather and seeking a real deli sandwich (not made by Subway Sandwiches). Local residents were actually advised in the local paper to "be nice" since the football cultists will be gone by Tuesday, when the sun returns.
Oh, by the way, all the famous folks are here. Why! Even Paris Hilton has been strutting her stuff with exclusive interviews with EVERY TV station in Phoenix. Perhaps Brigette can explain what people see in her?
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I am just finishing up my history degree and I must agree with what others have stated here. While I love much of University life there is certainly a degree of pandering. One of my philosophy profs once stated, “I hope you all know by now that these classes are about your teachers and not your subjects”. One generally isn’t allowed much wiggle room in terms of interpretation. For example I just read a translation of a journal entry from Cabeza de Vaca. He was writing down stories from the natives about a dwarf like figure who came in the night and dismembered people. The small figure would then put them back together and run off to a hole in the ground. To me it seemed like a classic abduction scenario, but our class was supposed to interpret it as part of a belief system.
At any rate, great job Jeremy!
Cheers-
RedClover
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