From the unexplained to the mundane, come join us on a journey to the fringe.
Hello and welcome to Journey to the Fringe.
We take you to where stars collide with the horizon and hatch into just baby little conspiracies.
We are your podcast guides to this place, Taylor and Chelsea.
And speaking of following stars, I think Chelsea can take over from here.
That was perfect.
Today's the day.
The day that we talk about George Ralph Norrie.
And that was the perfect introduction for him, I think.
Couldn't get any better.
George Ralph is the current host of Coast to Coast AM, who was, he was recruited by Premier Radio Network's
the guest host on Coast to Coast AM.
And he eventually took over for Lord and Savior Art Bell, becoming the permanent host on January 1st,
2003.
Let's, I think we need to take a little step back at this point, Chelsea.
Coast to Coast AM is a AM radio show broadcast basically across North America,
but between like midnight and 3 a.m. Eastern time, I believe, correct?
Yeah, yeah.
I think, I don't know, I can't remember what it is.
I've never listened to it.
And I think from like the late 90s.
I'm going to finish that sentence.
I've never listened to it live because I've never up that late.
I actually used to listen to it live.
That's that once or twice.
Because it was on 6.30 chat in Edmonton from like 11 a.m.
Yeah, I've caught it a few times live, like when we were driving.
But never the whole thing.
It's not, no.
But anyhow, I think from the like mid to late 90s to the like 2010s, somewhere in there,
you could say they're the big fish in the conspiracy pond.
Or a big fish in the conspiracy pond.
Yeah, I don't want to get too into Coast because this episode isn't about Coast because it's about
Nori, but yeah, I mean, Art Bell started Coast to Coast AM.
He's like the big kahuna.
People love him.
He was really great at hosting open lines is what Coast to Coast was known for without any,
what do you call it, like any screening.
He would thoughtfully debate people, just a really good host and have a lot of different
conspiracy minded alternative guests on as guests.
I think he would have been a really good skit actor or what do you call it?
What's whose line is it anyways?
Oh, that's like improv.
Improv, an improv actor because he was really good at the yes and like he didn't shut
colors down.
He always like kept them going and kind of like getting.
Oh yeah, he fully interacted with people and asked thoughtful question.
He was a really good host of Coast to Coast AM and people loved Art Bell and he never
like would turn people down to get on there.
He would debate them and he also was a pretty good showman.
He had a lot of a lot of classic and we'll look at it when we do an actual
episode on Coast to Coast AM.
A lot of really famous things happened and came from Coast to Coast AM.
That's Coast to Coast AM.
I'm sure in your time on earth you have encountered something to do with Coast to
Coast AM at one point or another.
And a lot of the assholes that we have done episodes on definitely appeared on Coast to
Coast AM.
I'm getting the Coast to Coast AM sometimes extensively.
Yes.
Which is also probably where we have heard from a lot of them.
And I'll get to it.
I was a huge listener to Coast to Coast AM for a long time and we will get to that.
So that's who George Norrie is.
That's who Coast to Coast AM is.
Like I said, we're focusing on George Norrie who is the current host of Coast to Coast AM.
And we're going to leave Coast to Coast AM and Art Bell open for subsequent episodes.
Which just makes sense, right?
And in retrospect of doing this episode, I'd like to say that George Norrie seems to
have such a very controlled presence.
More than I have actually seen with anybody else that we've done any episodes on.
It's really quite bizarre.
Anywhere I went to get the lowdown on George Norrie, I came up with literally the exact
same script about his life.
Which is the one that's on Coast to Coast AM.
Anywhere I went.
It was the copy, paste, same thing.
So while this episode is not in the direction I hoped for it to go,
I still have something quite nice put together for you.
I do know that he does not thoroughly control the Coast to Coast AM subreddit.
Oh no.
Oh no, which is where I got a majority of this information.
Okay, so who is George Norrie?
George Ralph Norrie.
He was born June 4, 1950, which makes him 73 years old and he grew up in Detroit,
Rock City, his death is Lebanese Egyptian and mother is Lebanese American.
And if you have listened to Coast to Coast AM for any amount of time,
you're probably familiar with the three or four stories that Norrie tells over and over
and over and over and over and over and over again.
Here's one of them.
He became interested in the paranormal and ufology as a child and joined the UFO
organization NiCAP as a teenager.
Had a spontaneous out-of-body experience once of a child,
but was never able to recreate it.
That is from memory, my friends.
And I haven't listened to Coast.
They're like 10 years.
Three, three years or so.
Okay.
At least he has three kids, six grandchildren.
He served nine years in the US Naval Reserve in norm particular order.
As far as the rest of his career, it goes like this.
He completes his bachelor's degree in communications from the University of
Detroit in 1972.
It's all very boring.
Radio career starts as, I mean, do you think anything exciting happens in this
guy's life?
Like I don't think it does.
His radio career starts as a newscaster with Detroit station WCARAM.
In 1974 for four years, he works as a news producer and executive news producer at WJBK
TV in Detroit.
He then went on to be a news director for KMSP TV in Minneapolis and then another news
director at some other letters of dash TV in St. Louis.
Surprisingly to me, maybe probably also maybe to some other people.
He won three local Emmy awards for his work in the TV news.
That would have been like St. Louis at the time.
Maybe.
Okay.
This is very boring information.
Yeah.
It goes on.
Well in St. Louis, Nori formed Norcom Entertainment Inc.
which developed a marketed video training films to law enforcement and security agencies.
I can't find a single thing related to Norcom other than a vague article about a letter of
intent to merge with another company in a stock exchange transaction from 2015.
So why he created this business that made these types of training videos is beyond me.
I did not know he had that background.
It's very weird.
Very weird.
I don't know.
And it doesn't sound like he did anything like meaningful when he was in the naval.
Naval I think he was in.
Did I say that yet?
Yeah, he was in the Navy.
Yeah.
So I don't think that would be it.
It also mentions Norcom was developing training programs for daycare centers,
nursing homes, and educational facilities to be marketed to over 1500 school districts.
Okay.
Those are two things you want to emerge, police training and daycare training.
No.
No, I don't know what the hell.
Like it's weird and I don't know what comes of it.
So apparently probably shuts down, but I don't know.
It's just a permanent cliffhanger.
You don't see anything else happen.
And obviously I didn't get that from the Coast to Coast website that's plastered everywhere.
And actually I don't know if this is related.
This is like weird.
But then there is Norcom Restaurants Inc.
And he's talked about his restaurant before, right?
Which I, he never really divulged the full details.
He, this Norcom Restaurants Inc.
Which is, I mean, he took the same name as the other one that.
When you're saying Norcom, is it N-O-O-R?
Like his last name?
N-O-R-C-O-M.
Oh, okay.
This company opens Cafe Marrakesh and Oasis Bar in Brentwood, Missouri.
And let me tell you, it is the most bizarre restaurant concept I've ever heard in my life.
So get this, the restaurant's theme revolves around a fictional English soldier, Colonel William Berry,
who opened the establishment following an exciting secret mission to Marrakesh.
Like what the fuck is that?
Like have you ever been to a restaurant like this?
What kind of food would they serve?
Is this like.
Like I don't know if it's like army rations or like.
Yeah, no, is this like medieval times where you get like tins of rations?
Or is it like, oh what's that one?
Like the Rainforest one where it's all rainforest themed in there but it's not like a show or anything?
My question exactly, and I would love to read you more information and maybe some Yelp reviews.
However, this restaurant is as old, if not older than me.
And unfortunately I'm dating myself by saying I predate Yelp and Google reviews.
I don't know.
It's about like, let's go to the restaurant that's about the Colonel.
Yeah, maybe this is like, it's like the mascot's backstory.
It's so weird.
So that's the end of that.
Huh.
It closed down.
It didn't.
It was.
You can't even confirm George is involved.
Okay.
1996 rolls around and Nori is hosting a late night radio show not unlike Coast to Coast AM
called The Night Hawk on KTRS in St. Louis, which ultimately is what catches the eye of
executives at Premiere radio networks, which is the syndicators of Coast to Coast AM.
Something else I failed miserably to find any sliver of piece of information on.
I couldn't find an old recording.
I couldn't find anything.
And in April 2001, Nori becomes guest host for Coast to Coast taking over for Ian Punnett.
As Sunday Night host, and I mentioned previously in 2003, he becomes
weeknight host of Coast to Coast AM after Art Bell's many retirements.
Now, as a side note, since we're on the subject, there was somewhat of a feud between
Art Bell and Nori. I don't know if you know this.
George Nori first took over show hosting duties in 2003 as a replacement for Bell,
but was temporarily discontinued after Bell returned citing disagreements with Nori.
At first, Art seemed pleased with the choice of Nori taking over the show, saying he just gets it.
Around the time Art Short lived serious foray, he told George to stop mentioning his name as a
part of the closing credits of the show because he didn't want to be associated with it.
It also appeared that Nori or Coast to Coast was stealing Art's guest from the other show he was
doing. One guest even had their Coast to Coast appearance cancelled after an appearance on
Midnight in the Desert. Art blatantly called it out and referred to Coast to Coast as the other show.
While there is a lot of hearsay on that, I just wanted to let you in on.
I can tell you one thing for sure and I can give it to you right out of the big guy's mouth himself
because there is a clip going around of Art Bell talking about George Nori on his ham radio.
The audio quality isn't great, but here you go.
It's ham radio level? Okay. Yep.
Don't get me started. He shouldn't be an LA. I always try to keep the Los Angeles influence as far from my life as I could.
I've got a lot of run-ins with them and I'm loving running into the center of that influence, right?
But you know, Woody Dodd's guest is. You mean in terms of the network? Yeah, the Sherman Open.
Yeah. Why do you think he wanted to do that? I mean, why would he decide to do that?
Is that going to mean he's going to do the show from K.F.I.?
It's going to mean he'll do the show from Pringar Studios, I'm sure, in the thousands.
I don't know if it's going to be a mistake. Every other radio program is originated in New York or Washington.
They're the poor LA and poor The Charm. For me, if that show was always my...
I wanted my own staff, in other words.
And so I demanded and were successful in demanding a complete buffer from those people.
And when I left, they took that opportunity to decimate that entire operation up there to close down there.
There's about 30 people who've lost their job because they were tired.
And so now that I'm raw, they're able to take very sharp control of it, of course, and to what you're seeing here as part of that.
I can understand a producer and... I'm a producer.
Why did his signal go through that?
Yeah, for sure it did. Instead of delivering my signal by IFDM, the way everybody else does,
we founded a much cleaner, better way to deliver the signal, and that was by KU-Band Satellite.
And so the KU-Band Satellite link was in Medford when Premier bought the program, and so we never changed that.
I wouldn't let them change it.
Oh, I see. So that was set up beforehand.
I got it. So you were uplinking to Medford, and Medford was...
That's where your board operator was, and that's where it went back up through Satellite for the station you were on, on whatever network you were on before.
Not a lot of people understand. I ran my own board.
However, yeah, there was an engineering staff up there that would do certain things,
but I ran my own board and answered my own telephone.
And George didn't do anything. He's got his entire workplace meeting.
He's got people whose screen is called, and he's got people who do literally everything for a month, commercials, everything.
I ran the commercials. I ran my board. I answered the phones. I did all of it.
Okay. All right. That answers some questions. I had gotten on that subject inadvertently since you mentioned that,
but I had wondered that for some time. What the hell Medford came into play.
But that makes sense that it was there before.
Premier picked it up.
But again, what are George's motivations for being in Los Angeles?
I can't, I can't, it's the biggest city. I mean, it's not like living in the middle of nowhere.
I mean, what's the people who want to be here?
I could only speculate.
You know, and I really shouldn't, but you know, he may think that he can be closer to the political side of the company and Tom Noff or those folks.
I can't really think of any other impact I can directly. I can't think of any advantage being in Los Angeles.
All I can think of is the advantages that it would cause.
Probably two, three times as much to live in LA as it would cause to live in Los Angeles.
And until the first survey from the House of State by George, I would not have told my home and moved to Los Angeles.
Or moved to LA rather than St. Louis.
And so I thought how I would deal with this superimposed.
I hear you. I understand that. I would agree with that.
If I could make the same money I'd make here, I would probably be in, I wouldn't be in a small town like you were in,
my preference would be to be in a city, but not this one.
Probably be in some place or maybe 500,000 people or so, something like that.
Not the 13 or 14 million people I'm surrounded by here.
Yeah, exactly. What's the point?
I like Russia a little over time. You know, what gives is to make where I am.
It doesn't make any difference at all. The most radio program is okay.
I always tried to keep the, well not try it, I did. I kept a lot of the Angeles in the store.
It was totally away from me. Completely away from me.
And I always thought that made a difference. In a way I was on the air. I just, you know, I was myself.
And you'd have to ask George why I went to LA.
But he's actually moving this weekend.
So on Monday, I think it is Monday. I use this Monday or Tuesday to show we'll begin to emanate from the studios of Stinger and LA.
Well, maybe he's, maybe they're trying to, maybe the network wanted him out here for some reason.
Maybe it's not so much he wants to be here. Maybe they're trying to persuade him or something to be here.
Maybe there's some reason they want him here.
Maybe he likes the weather. The weather is a good thing.
Maybe they're trying to...
You know, whatever.
They couldn't have moved me.
There's no way I'd help.
After Art Bell's death in 2018, Nori said that the two were not that close personally.
And there were major differences in their approaches.
Despite this, Nori said that Bell was quote instrumental in me being where I am now and quote.
Yeah, he is because he gave you the radio show to go to giving him his career.
George says that if he wasn't on a national radio show, he would be in politics.
Probably something of a mix between Biden and Ron Santos.
I would imagine why he felt we needed to know that beyond me and why I felt the need to tell you that also beyond me.
Yeah. I mean, he hasn't been his sharpest the last couple of years,
but I can't imagine him with his like every now and then he gets an opinion in and they're just the stupidest things you hear.
And apparently it has declined sharply in the last couple of years.
He apparently has let his political views out on coast to coast. People aren't happy about.
I believe I get to it. This is right from the coast to coast AM website. This is where you see everywhere.
Nori captivates program listeners with his discussions of paranormal phenomena, time travel, alien abductions, conspiracies and all things curious and unexplained.
He is driven, he has said by the desire to solve the great mysteries of our time.
I mean, I feel like it's a stretch because he's the least captivating guy I've ever listened to that has zero thoughtful questions.
Some questions, some may argue would bring into question whether or not he's even listening to the individual being interviewed.
So George gets the full time coast gig and he slowly just monetizes the shit out of absolutely everything he can get his hands on.
He co-writes a bunch of books. Don't worry, reviews included one star because they're the best.
These are the ones cited on his Wikipedia page. 2006 Nori and George Burns, William.
Worker in the light. Fran rates this two stars out of five.
Not interesting enough to get very far into the book. Sorry, I expected more. I'm thinking he is really into himself and in my honest opinion, has a holier than thou attitude.
2009, same authors. Nori, George, George Nori. Oh my God, I read that like an idiot.
George Nori and William Burns. Journey to the light. I just realized what I did.
Two out of five stars. Too many stories. I was interested in finding out how to journey to the light, although there were many stories from people's accounts.
There wasn't any detail how to reach the next hemisphere.
2011, George Nori and Rosemary Geily talking to the dead. Two out of five stars.
This book talked more about the people who developed the equipment to talk to the dead than actual conversations. This book was disappointing.
2013, oh this is one of my favorites George Nori books. Also co-authored with William J. Burns, George Nori's late night snacks.
George Nori has put together the ultimate after midnight cookbook.
That's why you said that to me.
Late night snacks for late night radio. Whether you're hankering for some nostalgic treats like homemade toaster tarts or rib-sticking dumplings.
Love you? What? Or something more exotic like spicy hurried curry pockets or Asian fusion salad.
George Nori shows you how to whip up quick delicious snacks with whatever ingredients are lying around your kitchen in the wee hours.
I had to give you the description for that one.
Now, Mike Moseley reviewed this quite extensively and I'm going to read this to you because I quite enjoyed it.
To start, I will give you my overall feelings for this book.
I found it to be a pleasant change from many cookbooks even though it's called a book of snacks all capitalized.
There are many recipes that make excellent meals in themselves.
He capitalizes snacks in every instance of beers in this review.
I highly recommend the book.
For anyone who was bored with their current recipes, it will give you ideas how to spice them up.
Included are many tweaks to change your average snack to a tasty meal.
Being somewhat of a cookbook collector, I've seen quite a few boring cookbooks.
When I read the description of the book, it sounded interesting and I was not disappointed.
What I found useful was that even though a number of recipes were pretty ordinary,
George Norrie added an interesting twist to them by adding ingredients other than what you would normally think.
An example, a great example might I add, is his meatloaf recipe which includes pepperoni.
That's a simple addition.
As quite an exchange to a plain meal.
Another snack I found to be quick and easy was his chicken fried rice.
Admittedly, it's more work than opening a pre-made package in heating,
but as he says, this recipe allows you to adjust the flavor to your own taste.
I mean, was he expecting this to be like just opening the package in the microwave?
Just put uncle Benz in the microwave.
The book advertises over, remember this is capitalized, 150 snacks,
but actually includes numerous recipes that are great for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and dessert.
A large variety of snacks was very impressive, including recipes for candy, ice cream, butter,
meat, bread, cereal, nuts, sauces, soups, seasonings, dressings, eggs, sandwiches, salads, and many more.
That's his review.
Mike, thank you for your duty.
That was exactly what I needed to know about that book.
And I was going to say there's no way he came up with these recipes,
and then he said the pepperoni and the meatloaf, and I was like, yeah, you know what, these are George Norris.
Yeah, that sounds like a George Norris pepperoni and the meatloaf.
That just reminded me there was like a month or a few weeks where he was off because he microwaved a hot pocket,
and it was too warm inside.
He microwaved it too long.
We've all been there. We're hungry and we can't wait for whatever came out of the microwave.
He was out for at least a week.
Of all the things he doesn't comment on, that was probably the one thing he shouldn't have commented on.
Yeah.
And just made something up.
Okay, next one, George Norris.
This one all on his own, night talk and novel.
I know how I love good reviews, and I'm about to give you one of the best reviews you will ever hear in your life from Winston O'Boogey.
Thank you for doing the Lord's work with this splendid review, one out of five stars.
And I can't figure out what he actually titled it because it's start out.
It's S, star, star, star, E, talk.
I don't know what that stands for.
Maybe shut it off.
I think it's shite talk, yeah.
Okay.
Because it's night talk, but shite talk.
Raise yourself, this is good.
I've been familiar with George Norris for many years.
As the host of Coast to Coast AM, I have come to regard him as the single most incompetent...
Sorry, let me keep my posture.
As the single most incompetent rockcaster in the history of radio.
Unable to speak coherently.
I don't know how I'm going to get through this.
Unable to speak coherently, pronounce words correctly, or understand the idioms of the English language.
He is also the laziest and dullest interviewer.
I lived most of my life in the UK and trust me, he couldn't get a job making the tea at the BBC.
He makes Alan Partridge sound like Alistair Cook.
All of this you might think would be something of a drawback when you host an interview and talk based show.
And yet he keeps announcing that Premiere Radio have awarded him yet another long term contract.
Either he is an incredibly cheap yet lucrative way of filling the night hours or he knows where the bodies are buried.
Given all of this, how can I not be intrigued by the prousteck of Mr. Norris venturing into the literary world?
Curiosity got the better of me and I dually purchased the copy of Night Talk.
A ghost writer does not appear to have been involved.
No one is credited or acknowledged as such.
Indeed, his scant four lines of acknowledgments, mostly his family does not even mention an editor.
The lack of such is immediately apparent.
A ghost writer or an editor might be expected to have a basic understanding of the structure of a novel.
And it's very clear that no such person got near this thing.
Moreover, the manuscript, far from being professionally proof read, has clearly not been so much as glanced at by anyone
with the passing acquaintance with the English language.
No, it was immediately apparent that this turd can only be the product of one man.
I was reminded of nothing more than Truman Capote's famously sneering dismissal of Jack Kurorat quote,
that's not writing, it's just typing, end quote.
Those familiar with Mr. Norris as a broadcaster will know what I mean when I say that only he could describe an object.
Being a round cylinder or talk about a character who waits while he...
or talk about a character who waits while he booted up his computer tablets,
we're referred to that well-known cinematic genre, car chase films.
Chapters are annoyingly, pointlessly short.
Chapter breaks appear in the middle of a conversation with the next chapter being a continuation of the same conversation in the same location.
Much of this feels dictated and then transcribed verbatim and sent to press with no revisions or passes.
How else does the sentence quote, we can imply from what we've seen that no one didn't know the woman.
Escape without someone pointing at that, imply is correct or should infer or deduce.
Or the use of horribly clumsy words like getting the whole news media to hold it didn't sound doable.
Again, the EMTs, cops and coroner people who showed up at the scene.
Have you ever seen anyone purse their brow?
One of Mr. Norrie's characters does it. Does anyone know what a police attitude test is?
An aptitude test I'm familiar with.
At one point, the hero and heroine are trapped in a burning building and our author displays the astonishment breath and invention of his vocabulary.
In the space of a single page we get, quote, the room was filled with smoke which made them go into coughing spasms and quote, quote.
He took a deep breath and choked on smoke going into coughing spasms and quote, quote.
Choking on the smoke and quote, quote. The space was dark and thick with smoke, sending them both.
Yesping for air into coughing spasms and quote, quote.
Coughing is smoke from the fire burn their lungs and quote.
Smoke makes you cough in spasms, get it?
Absurdly long sentences with no punctuation leave you feeling slightly dizzy or just keep going on and on for no apparent reason.
This is at its worst when Norrie wants to impress you with his detailed knowledge, as in this example.
Quote, so was the clutter that surrounded the house and barn like a lake of castoffs from the sea.
The anchors and port holes, Greg mentioned, rusty old cannons removed from Davy Jones' locker,
the helm to steer an ocean liner or a dayfisher, propellers to drive a ship in brackets.
Helpful that in case you don't know what a ship's propeller does.
Re-bracket.
Winches to raise the sails on a 10 meter sloop, lifeboats and dinghies, oars, lines, mass, booms, boys, engines.
In brackets, did you know Mr. Norrie was in the Navy? He knows these things.
Hold on. We're not done yet.
Win brackets. Figure heads from the boughs of sailing ships, bow spirits, galley stoves on gimbals to rock with the sea
and a host of other salty artifacts. Nautical treasures are junk depending on your perspective.
End quote from the book. Rule of Free George, Rule of Three.
He says, oh I could go on. Let me give Mr. Norrie a brief moment of credit.
There is a germ and a half decent idea in here.
If he was able to recognize his own limitations and seek the assistance or guidance from someone who knew what they were doing,
he might have produced a passable novel to pass a long plane ride, but he has no clue what he's doing, so this isn't that.
His characters are entirely one-dimensional.
The plot, such as it is, is laid out in the first 20 pages or so, and barely developed over the remaining 300.
The action keeps stopping so his protagonist can have long conversations about all the author's favorite kinnards.
Towards the end, there is a bizarre, irrelevant, and geographically mystifying drive-in fog up the mountain somewhere,
which is only there so Mr. Norrie can throw in an alien encounter for his hero.
And then it just well ends. No real conclusion or resolution.
Indeed, as George Norrie's alter ego, Gregg Noel, equals GN.
GN. Gregg Noel. Clever, huh?
Walks into the light in the final sentence.
I was filled with the profound sense of dread as the possibility of a sequel to the night talk crept into my brain.
In summary, a waste of paper.
I can only add the usual caution that I only awarded this a single star because no stars or more appropriately negative stars are not an option.
That has to be the most detailed, hilarious review I've ever read in my life, and I loved it.
Okay, so those are all the books that were mentioned on his Wikipedia.
I'm not sure how these others escaped.
If you just search them, honestly, I don't know if Norrie along with these others are just looking to slap his name on there or what's going on.
2014 UFOs for the 21st century mind, a fresh guide to an ancient mystery.
This is written with Richard M. Dolan and George Norrie.
One out of five stars never received it.
I had to include that.
Another one out of five stars.
I was expecting facts and logic, not enough facts and not enough logic for this 21st century mind.
Oh, and I must mention there are practically zero conclusions.
2015, someone is hiding something.
What happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight 370?
Richard Belzer, George Norrie and David Wayne.
One out of five stars.
Childishly serious, self aggrandizing.
Throughout nonsensical logic, internally contradictory and full of gratuitous, biased, irrational, irrelevant political tripe.
2017, mad as hell.
America's number one all night radio host takes on the dangerous world we live in.
This is just original.
I don't feel like it would be good.
Two out of five stars.
This is misleading. Save your money.
This is a catch all book and the title is very misleading.
It contained the entire history about UFOs.
He spoke about his anger about how things were today, but the last part of the book and it seemed like at least half of it was a self biography.
He should have kept it short, but seemed to repeat himself several times and rambled on and on.
The book was just too long and I found myself skipping many pages just trying to get through it.
George has many talents, but writing isn't one of them.
2022, UFOs for the 21st century mind.
The definitive guide to the UFO mystery.
New and expanded edition Richard Dolan, George Norrie. This one actually didn't have anyone who wrote out reviews.
It didn't have a very good star rating though.
2022, past life in ancient lands and other worlds.
Understand your soul's journey through time.
Shelley A. K. R. P. H. D. and George Norrie.
Two out of five stars.
The information about the agents is minimal and vague.
The exercises are the same thing repeated with a couple sentences added in.
On the whole, it was not insightful and it was a little biased towards new age thinking.
It definitely was not worth the $15 I spent.
You can get more on YouTube meditation for free.
I do not recommend this book.
Good day.
2022, the body code.
Unlocking your body's ability to heal itself.
Dr. Bradley Nelson and George Norrie.
This one is somehow his most highly rated book with his name on it on Amazon,
which I find interesting because there were a lot of angry reviews.
Well, let me just read this one.
One out of five stars.
Disappointed.
This book is in no way complete.
It is fragmented and you must purchase the app, which is about $30 per month.
What?
He should have the complete info and diagrams at his website free of charge.
As he says, the publisher limited the size of the book and only charge for the app if someone wants something more convenient.
The book does not deliver the information.
I don't understand why someone would be motivated to write such a book that is so incomplete.
It's like selling a card that doesn't have an engine or transmission and promising that it will take you from point eight to point B.
So those are the books.
We're seeing a lot of things with the book.
We're seeing that he's not a great writer.
He does also, he writes a lot of four words to books just so they can get his name on there.
We're also seeing him just blatantly throw like shit to the wind and hope that he makes money off something.
Yeah.
Well, I have to be honest with the four words.
My theory is that somebody just pays him and sends him what they want to say and he'll just sign it.
Based at what we get through in this, I really think that that's what's happening as well.
And then we're seeing on the last one just a blatant money grab after somebody's bought a book.
So what else has he monetized?
December 2012, Giam TV, which is now referred to as Gaia, launched Beyond Belief with George Norrie,
a new TV show exploring the unknown and mysteries of the universe.
The one hour weekly series features Norrie's informative, investigative and dynamic conversations.
I would honestly listening to him not describe any of that as him.
As well as some of his favorite guests from the radio program, obviously since he is in it for the money, it's not being done at gunpoint.
No, but this would, I never actually saw an episode of it.
I was aware of it.
Yeah.
But this would at least show us how invested he is in his actual interviews and like,
it's true.
I guess it's on his phone the entire time.
And then just popping up to ask a cool question when you hear silence.
Yeah, to be sure.
Membership starts there at $15 per month.
This TV show is still going.
He has also hosted quote unexplained with George Norrie.
Not sure why I put a quote on that.
That sounds right up his alley actually.
A lot of the things he does, I can't explain.
No, he also has appeared on history channels,
Ancient Aliens, Syfy, Larry King Show and numerous others.
I don't know.
I guess they didn't want to list the numerous others on the website,
but he is in Extraordinary The Revelations.
The follow up to Extraordinary The Stanley Tiger Story,
which we also need to do one on that as well.
It's on the list.
Maybe one day we'll get to it.
I'm going to make an over here.
Extra.
I don't know if you say it extraordinary or extraordinary.
It's extraordinary.
Extraordinary.
And I mean, tomato tomato, I guess at that point.
Okay.
So he started ParanormalDate.com.
Oh, I forgot about that.
Oh, you're going to love this part.
This is the blurb on the front page.
George Norris, syndicated radio host of Coast to Coast AM
and SiriusXM Satellite Radio.
He started a dating app because you notice how lonely everybody
who's calling to talk to him is.
Basically, this takes an interesting turn.
Okay.
He's syndicated radio host of Coast to Coast AM
and SiriusXM Satellite Radio,
entertaining millions weekly on nearly 700 radio stations,
created ParanormalDate after seeing a need
from his massive loyal audience.
They were so lonely.
Norris says,
I keep hearing the same thing at speaking events around the country.
George, I need a place to meet people of like mind
that understand me and my interests.
And from that, ParanormalDate.com was born.
That's what he says.
I say it's free and yes, it is to sign up,
but you cannot communicate for free.
And in poking around the website,
I saw it was powered by whitelabeldating.com,
which I then went to the website to see what it was about.
Basically, it runs the website, ParanormalDate.com,
and it shares from a database.
So when it says there are however many members
on ParanormalDate.com, it's platform sharing.
So it's not counting those on ParanormalDate.com.
When it says communicate with however many members
that are active on there.
It also means that members who join and pay for ParanormalDate.com
to communicate with people are less than likely
to be communicating with someone from ParanormalDate.com.
In the terms of service, you do have to agree
to have your information added to the network.
So you have this collection of like dating websites
of all sorts of themes, whoever is powered by this,
and you're getting messages that you have to pay to see
and ask them about, you're like,
hey, you like aliens? Do you like ghosts?
Which is why everyone's going to be on this dating website.
And a majority of the time, the response is like,
what the fuck are you talking about?
That is weird stuff, man.
I just assume it's a white supremacist dating site
outside of that as well.
I did as well.
I don't know if it is or not. I can't.
I don't know why it's called. I cannot confirm nor deny.
No, I cannot.
I tried to see if I could get pricing,
but it's hidden without signing up.
I saw someone post three years ago,
it was $30 a month or $199 for a year.
Jesus.
So it's probably increased by now.
And turns out people are highly unsatisfied with it.
There are only one and two star reviews
anywhere I was able to look. And now I have some reviews.
Laura M says, worst dating site ever,
fake profiles and scammers beware.
Same experiences as others that I would receive a notification
then go to the site and their profile was no longer active
many times.
No one on the site mentions anything about paranormal
interest, only communicated with one person who was real.
Last one wanted to Google chat because his phone line
had funky static and I couldn't hear him.
First red flag.
He later gave me a sad story that his power was cut off
and asked to borrow money.
Bye bye.
I'm canceling.
George Norrie should be ashamed of this site.
Tip for consumers beware.
Don't use the site.
Jim predatory bogus.
Don't pay.
You will not get a refund.
I joined on Saturday requested a refund $199 on Sunday
per message, but did not request cancellation.
Customer service responded Tuesday,
4am by email since I had used the site,
viewed messages probably sent by employees and replied
to messages.
I was not eligible for a refund of one year membership.
So I swear this is my experience.
I am still a member and quotes victim.
So I get to talk to probably ghost non-existent members,
whores, predators, catfish and chumps like me.
You will do better looking for companionship at a grocery
store and there's no evidence anybody wants to talk about
paranormal or date stuff either.
A bogus dating site in my opinion.
George Norrie millionaire.
You should be ashamed.
I would give the site a negative rating if possible.
And I just threw this one in because here's another mention.
Lucy mostly hookers and scammers.
Not sure why that keeps coming up.
I go on the website thinking I might could date an outer space
alien.
I believe that this is someone signing up for
barenormalteach.com.
Instead, it's all of these 90 year old wheelchair bound
ladies in Brooklyn, Perth, Amboy, Trenton and hookers.
I put a little profile on there and in two days have been
solicitated 200 times.
It's hard to keep up with because of their profiles
deleted in two hours.
They are gorgeous in the profile photos.
Not real no doubt.
I picked up the patterns and banter in a few minutes.
They want you to contact them through coded Gmail and they
disguise their phone numbers by saying things like I was on
highway 888 and passed 780 donkeys and then saw 1001
crows.
I am trying to communicate with two of them but haven't
gotten beyond a cursory introduction.
One lady just told me that her mother is sick in LA and she
needs help getting out there.
Hard pass.
Tip for consumers.
Most of the profile that interested me were taken down
in a matter of minutes and they were all so pretty too.
Hard pass.
Now that is someone who would be listening to coast.
I never got as alien.
Nope.
He didn't get his date with an alien.
Overview.
A normal date has a rating of 1.02 stars from 42 reviews
indicating that most customers are generally disfatticied
with their purchase.
A normal date ranks 690 second among dating websites.
There are that many dating websites?
I assume there's a ton.
I mean how else would white label dating be a thing?
I mean we could probably start a journey to the front.
690 second out of how many?
690.
Okay so he also does live appearances which he shamelessly
gloats on coast to coast AM about.
Especially his singing during the event which is weird to say
the least because I mean I doubt not one single person
bought a ticket to hear him sing.
I'm going to get to George Norris singing right here.
George Norris singing.
The coast to coast AM website is riddled with ads
which they obviously make a profit of.
And there are multiple complaints and criticisms of Norris
that coast to coast has become one big infomercial
Norris and coast is profiting off of.
I can't confirm for sure but lots of speculation that
guests pay for their spots pointing that books and websites
are linked and talked about but during open lines
guests are quickly cut off mentioning any such thing.
Other than that Doc Wallach is on so frequently
promoting his health products and his dangy dangdureen.
I think that's one of the main guests now that they have quite frequently.
I forgot about that guy who's like you can't eat these things
don't worry I have vitamin packs for anything that could
possibly be wrong with you.
You can't use any oil in your cooking you have to be vegetarian
not vegetarian but.
Yeah I can't remember what it is now but he is on very frequently now.
They have had guests who were regulars on their leave as well.
So yeah I'll have another commentary on that shortly.
So after all of that I was curious as to George Norris' worth.
What do you think?
I will put him somewhere around like 8 million probably.
His reported net worth as of late 2016 so it's going to vary from then.
He's probably higher now.
In 2016 was 2 million.
Okay.
With a salary of 500,000.
Wait the fuck did he do with all his money?
He's been doing it for more than four years at that time.
That's the version of like what he's been involved in and everything.
And I can't do sightings of George Norris which is always my favorite part
but what I can do is what do people think of good old Norris
which I was able to find through what Taylor said the Reddit.
People go to the people's place.
The Reddit.
And coast to coast AM Reddit is wild because I haven't seen a positive post
or comment about George Norris on there at all.
I think no I saw one post that said I feel so bad for George
because what if he reads this and it keeps me up at night that it makes him sad.
He has no idea what Reddit is.
Do not worry.
No.
So the list of criticisms is long especially when compared to Ert Bell
from the canned comments Norris heavily relies on
the strange and out of touch responses to his guests
as if he's not listening.
The heavily screened open lines with the same callers time and time again
and the shameless self promotion and money grabs it goes on.
Personally I was a long time insider.
I paid for it which is why I didn't really listen to it at the early hours
because I just paid to listen to it whenever I conveniently wanted to.
And eventually I canceled it because I just couldn't continue with Norris anymore.
I had enough.
It continued to get worse and worse and I was out of there.
In the 2010 article about Norris published in the Atlantic
Timothy Lavin wrote quote,
Norris can be an uneven broadcaster.
Sometimes he seems to not pay attention fully to his guests.
Offer strangely obvious commentary or
and this has alienated some fans.
Let's clearly delusional or pseudo scientific assertions slide by without challenge.
But he listens with heroic yes to all of his callers and quote.
He'll let a lot of things go with zero pushback,
which doesn't mean you are biased or you are biased if you don't give any pushback.
It's literally that's your job as a journalist or an interviewer.
Yes, is to test what they're actually saying to see if it's actually true.
Not only that, but like most people started listening for Art Bell
and they're loyal to coast, not necessarily George Norris.
I would go out on a limb to say they keep talking about how loyal all George Norris listeners are.
I really think that it's coast at that point.
The reason he's done so well in my mind is because I believe coast to coast finds a lot of its viewership
from old lonely people who have had a supposed guy who are awake during the night
and he is a soothing voice for them and will listen.
His conversations that go best are conversations with old people call it.
He has been down hard.
He does and they're probably buying up everything that he slings.
Yeah, and like that one guy said in the review on paranormal dates.
How it's 95 year old women.
Now, this little fact could be chalked up to millions of different causes,
but going from Belle to Norrie, I was able to find these stats.
Coast to coast AM declined by 7.5 million listeners.
Do you have a time period over or is it just kind of in general?
No, it was in general.
Okay.
But they're quickly to say that he's on one of the biggest syndicated radio shows in the universe.
I would say that one of the possible not, I fully want to put this all on George,
but over the course of his time with coast to coast,
I believe a lot of these listeners have moved to podcasts or things that are not time related
or are just kind of free because like pretty much all their guests who come on have their own podcast.
Yep, absolutely.
And there's a lot more available than there was during the time of coast to coast.
No, that absolutely could be.
And like I said, it could be a million different cause.
Not to be a George Norrie and give your opinions no pushback.
There could be a million different causes for that, that being exactly some of what you just said.
So what else do we got?
We got on it.
Mikker trusted in on Reddit and he says George has a passing interest in the paranormal,
or at least he did, but he was never as intriguing as a host as art.
Never.
But the dude is a businessman.
If you've listened long enough, you hear him talking about his failed business ventures.
The restaurants, the race horses, coast is just a business venture to him.
The live shows, the supplements, that's why it's so formulaic.
There is no passion anymore.
What little there was to begin with wasn't that great anyway.
But it's just a vehicle for George and his partners to make money for.
For what? I don't know.
I know some of his grandkids have fallen off the rails.
Maybe he's trying to create a financial cushion for them.
KP Murphy underscore has said no inside knowledge, but it seems like once art officially and finally stepped away from coast,
the show began to change in terms of the average nightly topic and it really shifted pandemic 2020 election.
This is where this is before I stopped listening and I keep seeing that this was a shift and it's gone down.
This is after you stop listening.
This is after, sorry.
It is just taint since then.
I actually, since I stopped listening, I haven't really listened at all.
I've always felt, this goes on for KP Murphy underscore.
I've always felt George didn't care about the paranormal subjects nearly as much as art did.
I know he never had the GIS people on the EVPs because he said he didn't believe in them or something along those lines.
It just seems like plenty of other people would have done a better job of keeping the spirit of the show alive.
I agree.
Thankfully in the podcast era, there are different avenues to scratch the paranormal itch,
but nothing will ever match the magic of listening to Art Bell broadcasting in the middle of the night.
Caustious Thoughts 362.
Yeah, I miss art too.
I've listened faithfully after he left, but it's not the same.
I agree.
It really seemed to change during and after the pandemic.
I've always thought it was apolitical, but it got very political.
It became evident which political side George was on and who he supported.
It was a huge disappointment for me and my feelings for the show have gone steeply downhill ever since.
Yeah.
I still listen, but it's only a matter of time until I start a serious search to find something else to listen to in the middle of the night.
I can take or leave the show these days.
And it's just become blatant.
He has always had those views.
Yeah.
Whether by a mission or what he didn't push back on, he has always had those views.
He just didn't vote.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Apolitical and unbiased.
For some weird reason.
I guess that made up for something in his mind.
George and Open Lines.
This is a question put on Reddit.
So I used to listen to CausticLot back in 2014 and I recently just started listening again and I noticed something off.
Am I the only one who gets the idea George isn't that interested in talking to Open Line callers that much anymore?
Could just be me, but it just seems like he isn't at all there and he seems to even avoid Friday nights a lot.
I've heard a lot in the Reddit subgroup as well.
He only does a couple hours a lot of the time and then puts on a rerun for the last couple hours.
Nashamura says he never seemed very interested in doing the show, period.
He's been half-assing it ever since he got the gig.
He's not even paying attention most of the time.
It sounds like he's reading a script.
Angie underscore vague says,
As an on-topic aside, I'd like to note that Art Bell was intelligent and engaged in the conversation.
Nori is neither.
I tried to listen to Nori on several occasions, but his general dumb assery is so off-putting.
User deleted says Nori basically took coast to coast in a direction Art always resisted.
He turned it into a late-night infomercial with guests like Doc Wallach and Ben Fuchs.
No doubt Nori reads from Hu-cards on some shows.
I would say all of them.
Constantly interrupts guests with inane questions.
He also got rid of the sacred cow of coast to coast.
Unscreen calls.
Okay, I just had to keep reading.
Unscreen calls and especially unscreened open lines.
Also, you cannot do the famous ghost to ghost AM and New Year's prediction shows without unscreen calls like Art used to do.
Art prided himself on his open line segments.
Just like his guitar solo on the show, Nori actually makes callers submit ghost to ghost stories before Halloween to tell on the show.
I can go on and on about how much Nori throttled coast legacy.
The many appearances of Dr. Morgas, the same four callers every night because most of the coast loyalists have fled.
Nori also takes Fridays off a lot so he won't have to do open lines.
He obviously avoids it like the plague.
His guests hosts are terrible. The only ones I find tolerable if I do decide to listen are Richard, Sarah and George Knapp.
Just a few of my frustrations I have accumulated over the years.
I do not hate George Nori. I just think he was a bad choice.
The popularity of other shows like John B. Wells, Art Midnight, Clyde Lewis Ground Zero, Jimmy Church Fade to Black proves coast sucks now.
Jimmy and John B. were actual good hosts at one point and were dismissed for some reason.
Oh, I forgot too. Linda Moulton Howe jumped ship also got her own show.
Okay, that's for now.
Oh, I forgot about that. Yeah, there's a whole thing behind that.
Linda Moulton Howe? Yeah.
Not going on coast?
Yeah, no, she did like a whole hour episode of YouTube video about how she had a very large disagreement with George and she won't be on there anymore.
Oh, really? I didn't listen to that one.
Yeah.
You have anything else to say about it?
I can't remember.
Okay.
I liked John B. Wells.
He was kicked off really quickly actually.
I don't think he was a co-host for very long.
What I enjoyed about him is he actually challenged guests and asked decent questions.
What else did he say?
People aren't willing to pay if they're going to be questioned.
Raphmont My favorite example is when he asked a guest about Sanskrit.
Quote, is it called Sanskrit because it's script made in the sand?
And the guest was like, uh, he always did stupid things like that.
That was the end of that comment.
Anonymous put George Norrie took over after art left.
Yes, he did.
He turned a great show into a four hour infomercial, hawking scams like Carnivora, Home Witchcraft Kits and $95 DVDs about technical remote viewing by Conman, Major Ed, Dames.
Norrie is famous for being unprepared for the interviews and for falling asleep while the guest is talking.
He also fails to ask any critical or perceptive questions.
Instead, he responds with comments from his list of stock answers his fans have christened Norrie-isms.
He further damaged the reputation of the show by hosting videos made by full time Conman, part time pervert, cat hoarder and e-baker, George Senda.
I refer you to Senda Leeks and other websites devoted to exposing him.
Google it, keywords, Falkie, George Senda and the guy from Pittsburgh. Actually, he's not.
Gotta look into that guy.
We're ending with George Norrie is a disgrace.
I don't think most of his open callers are legit.
They are paid actors who are giving canned questions to ask George.
Even if a few are actually real, they are heavily screened.
Art took calls himself live on the air.
George doesn't have the balls to do that.
He's a disgrace to the show.
That's my episode.
That's where my research took me.
It was surprising places.
Yeah. Any closing thoughts, any general tastes that have left in your mouth?
It just brought back some nostalgia of some like just clearly weird things that happened while listening to it years and years ago.
Oh yeah. There was always, you would always be like, did he actually just say that?
Like that doesn't even make sense.
But he just said always, all the time.
Yeah. Every episode without fail.
I don't really know that he has other than being this radio host in which he's being paid.
Or I wouldn't say that he necessarily has any interest in the paranormal.
To be honest with you, he's never said anything that's quite compelling that he's so driven to find answers.
I don't know if you're a disdainful thought process on that.
Yeah. I would say that's an apt point.
There's a couple of things I find very annoying about George.
If I do agree, he says that he leaves out personal bias.
I have seen interviews that he does where it's either the omission or the point of questions clearly show he does not agree with the topic.
And like one that comes to mind very clearly was a guy who was on there about vegetarian diets and how they're good for the planet, good for the body.
And he just kept trying to shit on the guy the entire interview.
And then when they went to open lines, he picked just people who do not agree with a vegetarian diet.
Nobody with questions just saying like this.
Jesus. He very slyly doesn't offer an opinion, but you're right on things like that is what I didn't mention.
It's very like you wouldn't really notice it because you're so used to George saying he doesn't give opinions on things.
Yeah. Well, and then he does say like he tries to keep an unbiased appearance.
Like one of the things he's always said he doesn't vote, but that doesn't mean you don't have opinions.
Right. Exactly. And why you won't vote because you're on coast to coast to you doesn't make sense.
That's absurd.
And he very clearly has one party that he likes over the other one.
Yeah.
But yeah. Oh yeah.
I don't think I have anything to add.
Great. Yeah. So that's George Ralph Norrie and we did it.
One day we'll do a coast to coast episode. But for now, I have been Taylor.
Here with Chelsea. We are Journey to the Fringe. Thank you all for listening and we'll see you next week.
Bye.
Thanks everyone for listening and giving us ideas for new episodes or tell us that we're wrong and terrible either way.
Please send us an email at journeytothefringe at gmail.com.