Conspiracy Spoken Jazz

Confession: I'm a conspiracy nut! I can't get enough of stories about secret societies, UFOs, and things not being as they appear.

It's not like I believe the stuff. Really. I just find it all very entertaining. So, I was thrilled the other day when I found out that Dave Emory is podcasting.

Who is Dave Emory? Dave Emory (and here) describes himself as an anti-fascist researcher. I like to think of him as a conspiracy jazz artist.

I used to listen to him late on Sunday nights on KFJC, the Foothill College radio station. His hour-long talks, full of references to secret Nazi cells in the United States government, gives an alternative history of everything that has happened politically since World War II.

Is anything he says true? It's hard for me to say, since his conspiracy reporting never seems to come to any closure. No statement that can be tested for truth. Each program is full of references to his previous programs that refer to other previous programs. Each show contains an amazing density of conspiratorial hinting around and dropping of names of obscure, shady figures.

But here's the thing that makes it all work. The man has a great voice for a conspiracist. If you don't listen too closely to what he's saying (whatever he's talking about), it's like listening to some kind of paranoid free-form spoken jazz. The steady gush of verbiage has a wonderful hypnotic rhythm and tone to it. He must be aware of this delivery, too; the show used to open with a long stretch of John Coltrane, with a lot of the same qualities of the talk that followed.

You may not be getting it from this post, but give a listen to one of Dave Emory's shows sometime and you'll hear what I'm talking about.